Wales schoolboy left brain damaged following asthma attack

A young family from Wales has had their lives shattered after their son has been left brain damaged following an asthma attack.

The family of 11-year-old schoolboy Geraint Richards from Tondy, near Bridgend, have decided to speak out and warn others about the seriousness of the lung condition asthma in the same week it was reported that a high volume of asthma deaths could have been avoided.

The National Review of Asthma Deaths — the biggest single study looking into the circumstances involved with asthma deaths — found 1,250 asthma related deaths in 2012 where 800 of those could have been prevented with better monitoring from doctors, as well as patients taking the condition more serious and using their brown preventer inhalers.

Geraint fortunately survived his experience, but after suffering a near-fatal asthma attack during the short walk home from school on 31 January this year, his and his family’s lives have been left devastated and possibly changed forever.

After suffering the asthma attack, Geraint was rushed to Bridgend’s Princess of Wales Hospital where a team worked tirelessly for five hours to stabilise his condition and bring it under control. However, the schoolboy had a panic attack and later went into a cardiac arrest and it took 14 minutes for medics to revive him.

However, Geraint was struck with severe debilitating injuries from the lack of oxygen. During a cardiac arrest, blood supply to vital organs is prevented and if blood does not get to the brain, it results in severe neurological damage, as seen with Geraint. Since the traumatic ordeal in January, the youngster has had to spend three weeks in intensive care at the University Hospital of Wales, another week on the high dependency unit and until the present day he has been cared for at the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital in Cardiff.

His parents Chris and Julie say their son will have a long road ahead of rehabilitation and therapy, but they both have remained strong for Geraint, barely leaving his bedside in the last four months and are now facing up to the fact their son as they used to know him, may have gone forever.

Geraint’s father Chris, 44, said: “He has always suffered with asthma and it was under control. He was under a consultant and he was really pleased with him. In fact, the week before this happened we had discussed the possibility of him being discharged from his regular check-ups because we were worried about him missing school.

“The day it happened was just a normal day – he went to school. He rang my wife at about 1pm saying he felt a bit ill. She said she finished work at 2pm and, if he still felt ill, to call her and she would pick him up. She never heard from him, so presumed he was okay. But when school finished, he phoned to say he was feeling unwell, his chest was tight and that he’d run out of his inhaler. The school is only a short walk from our home, but by the time my wife got to him in the car, he was practically sat on the floor struggling to breathe. She knew straight away it was bad, so she took him to the nearby surgery where she works.”

Geraint was initially treated with a nebuliser, but this failed to have much effect and he was rushed to hospital in Bridgend.

His father says: “They tried back-to-back nebulisers and an injection in to the vein, but nothing worked.”

It got to 11.30pm with no signs of improvement and an intensive care team transferred Geraint to Cardiff. It is here he went into cardiac arrest and suffered the life-changing injuries.

“He’s communicating by blinking and making noises, but we hope that one day he will get his speech back. The only way I can explain it is that he’s the same boy with the same memories and sense of humour, but he’s trapped in a body that he can’t move and he can’t talk.”

Mr Richards added: “It’s totally turned our lives upside down. Our daughter’s been absolutely fantastic and is trying to be so strong, but we don’t have any quality time with her. The worst bit is that it’s so hard to believe that in this day and age that asthma can be so devastating. Geraint was just a normal boy who loved his sport, Xbox and fishing. But then he was so close to dying. In fact, he was clinically dead for 14 minutes.”

Asthma deaths could be avoided – The importance of brown preventer inhalers

Preventer inhalers for the respiratory condition asthma usually comprise of a steroid drug and are used daily to prevent symptoms from developing by working to reduce inflammation in the airways. As the inflammation has subsided, there is less risk of the airways becoming narrow and causing symptoms like wheezing.

The brown preventer inhaler is usually taken twice a day. Your doctor may advise you to use the brown inhaler more often if you are experiencing a regular flare-up of symptoms. Medical Specialists™ Pharmacy have noticed a worrying trend of asthma patients very rarely or even not using their brown inhalers at all and over-using the blue reliever inhaler.

You should always remember it can take between 7 to 14 days for the brown preventer to build up its effect, or sometimes as long as six weeks, and will not give immediate relief of symptoms like the blue inhaler offers. Basically, the impact of the brown inhaler is built over time and will decrease the chance of an asthma occurring by slowly building resistance to triggers.

In fact, you may find your asthma is well controlled by regular use of the preventer and find you need to use your reliever inhaler less often, if at all.

This is particularly significant following a national review claiming that around two thirds of UK deaths from asthma in the UK — including nearly all cases where a child is involved – could have been averted if there was less complacency amongst doctors, carers and the patients themselves, with a quarter of sufferers receiving unsatisfactory care.

The report, led by the Royal College of Physicians, found a shocking number of needless deaths that experts described as “a tragic waste of life”.

Only Estonia and Spain has higher death rates than the UK in the Western world, and there are huge concerns about the increasing death toll. For instance, in 2012 there were 1,250 asthma related deaths – a 10% increase over the previous three years. The new review states 800 of those could have been prevented with better care.

The National Review of Asthma Deaths — the biggest single study looking into the circumstances involved with asthma deaths — examined 195 deaths within the UK. It was discovered that in about a quarter of the cases, care was not of a satisfactory standard and in 83% of cases, there was room for improvement.

Dr Mark Levy, a GP and one of the authors of the report, said ‘complacency’ was a fair word to describe the situation.

“We have known about the identifiable or preventable factors relating to asthma deaths since 1966,” he said. “The shocking and surprisingly sad thing about this report is that we still find preventable factors in over 70% of cases, some of which are pretty serious. For instance, 45% of those who died did not call or obtain help, which indicates that either these patients weren’t too worried about their asthma or they’d never been told how to recognise the danger signs.”

Those who died tended to over-use their blue reliever inhaler to subside the symptoms of an asthma attack as these inhalers help to open the airways for easier breathing. They do not treat the underlying problems however, and this is something many asthma patients do not realise.

“They don’t address the inflammation,” said Levy. “It’s like painting a rusty pipe.” Unsurprisingly, the study found an alarming under-use of the brown preventive inhalers.

The review has called for each hospital and GP practice around the UK to have a specified doctor in charge of asthma services and who should work at improving asthma care. In addition, patients need to be monitored more thoroughly according to the review, so that action is taken at the first instance if it is apparent that a patient’s asthma is no longer under control.

It is recommended that each asthma patient should keep a personal asthma action plan to help them realise when the condition begins to get worse and when to seek further help.

If you seek help from Medical Specialists™ for your asthma, you can be assured of an efficient and discrete service. We offer a wide range of both blue reliever inhalers, such as Ventolin Evohaler and brown preventer inhalers, such as Qvar Easi-Breathe.

Patient care is at the core of our aims and our GMC-registered doctors will carefully review your consultation to decide your suitability for that medication and then also assess the frequency of your orders with us thereafter. This is essential as if mentioned earlier, you are requiring too many relievers, it could be a sign of underlying problems with your asthma and we would recommend you see your own GP for further monitoring as you may need to undergo a lung function test. This is essential to determine if your asthma is getting worse or to check if your asthma is improving with treatment.