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Former Children’s Air Ambulance patient is now in perfect health as she celebrates 1st Birthday

The first Sunday of the second national lockdown – 8 November – is going to be full of fun for former Children’s Air Ambulance patient Brandii-Leigh from Hastings.

The toddler, who was transferred from the local Conquest Hospital to Evelina Children’s Hospital in London by helicopter for urgent treatment for a serious respiratory virus, will be celebrating her first birthday with a party at home.

There will be lots of balloons and presents including a ride-on Minnie Mouse train on a track.

Her mum Samantha says: “She is in perfect health now – happy, noisy and such an amazing little fighter. You wouldn’t know there was ever anything wrong with her.”

“Thanks to the Children’s Air Ambulance she got the care she needed as it wasn’t available at our local hospital.”

Brandii-Leigh was four weeks old when she tested positive for the respiratory virus RSV. She was regularly stopping breathing for periods of 10 or 11 seconds.

“She went a horrible shade of grey and was gasping for breath. She made a grunting noise when she was trying to breathe. It was very distressing,” Samantha.

There was a limit to the treatment she could receive at the Conquest Hospital as there is no paediatric intensive care unit there.

For three days Brandii-Leigh was given oxygen via different methods including wafting and CPAP machine, but her breathing didn’t improve. It became so laboured and the length of the apnoeas (period of not breathing) got longer and more frequent so she was intubated and put on a ventilator.

At this point, it was decided to transfer her to the Evelina Children’s Hospital in London for specialist care.

The Children’s Air Ambulance was mobilised to fly from its base in Oxford to collect colleagues from the South Thames Retrieval Service (STRS), who were waiting at Battersea Heliport, and take them to Hastings to accompany Brandii-Leigh and Samantha back to London.

It took just 36 minutes to fly from Hastings back to Battersea Heliport where a land ambulance was waiting to transfer Brandii-Leigh to the Evelina Hospital for the urgent treatment she needed. By road, the journey would take about two and a half hours.

Brandii-Leigh was kept in intensive care on a ventilator.  After four days she was able to breathe on her own and was well enough to be driven home with Samantha by a member of the family.

Unfortunately, the next evening Brandii-Leigh had a severe coughing fit and couldn’t get her breath. She was taken by ambulance back to the Conquest Hospital in Hastings where she spent another week on oxygen.

“She got very used to being on oxygen so had to be weaned off it slowly and learn to breathe for herself again,” explains Samantha.

But luckily it was a happy ending for Brandii-Leigh.

“Thanks to the Children’s Air Ambulance she got the care she needed as it wasn’t available at our local hospital. Everything happened so quickly and was so well organised. The helicopter crew and STRS team were all so reassuring. I felt as though we were in the best hands possible,” says Samantha.