By Ralph Barnett

THE MOTHER of an eight-year-old Arbroath girl who died on Monday evening following a suspected asthma-related seizure yesterday spoke of her and her family’s need for answers.

Courtney Anne Reid (pictured), who lived with her parents Leora and James and sisters Shannon (13), twins Emma and Marie (12) and Taylor (7) in Linton Road, had suffered from a severe form of asthma since she was two.

Over the years she had been in and out of hospital on a great many occasions but, despite her parents’ repeated calls for further tests, medical staff at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee have always insisted the best course of action was to treat her symptoms with inhalers, antibiotics and steroids.

The youngster was being rushed to Ninewells by ambulance on Monday evening when, after what had been a relatively normal day back at Hayshead Primary School and an equally uneventful evening with her family, she took a coughing fit which could not be stabilised by her inhaler or nebuliser.

Despite ambulance personnel administering oxygen and adrenalin as her condition deteriorated further, Courtney passed away in the ambulance as it sat in a lay-by in Arbroath Road, Dundee, with even a desperate bid to revive her using a defibrillator having no effect.

Her mother Leora, who is expecting her sixth child in May, said yesterday, “There is asthma in our family and Courtney was diagnosed with the condition when she was two.

“Her asthma got progressively worse as the years went by and she was in and out of hospital then about four years ago she started having night attacks.

“I would say she had to be admitted to hospital as an emergency around eight times each year, sometimes ending up spending a couple of days in intensive care but all the doctors ever said was that it was asthma and could be treated with inhalers, steroids and antibiotics.

“I know lots of people with asthma and Courtney’s cough was just not like anything I’ve ever heard.

“I eventually managed to persuade the doctors at Ninewells to let me speak to someone about sleep disorders—we had looked into it on the internet and thought there was maybe something in it.

“And Courtney had actually been through to the Sick Children’s Hospital in Edinburgh at the beginning of December for some preliminary tests where the specialists saw exactly what she was like when the coughing started.

“She had another really bad attack at home on New Year’s Eve—just five minutes before the bells—when she went completely blue and it took me nearly two hours to get her stabilised again.

“The next morning she was fine again and she had been OK until last Sunday when she was complaining of a sore stomach and had six attacks during the night, the last one at about 6 o’clock in the morning.

“On the Monday morning, though, she got up and dressed for school as if nothing had happened and at half past eight headed out to meet her best friend Jamie Lee.

“She came home at lunchtime and her dad took her back to school and in the evening, although she seemed a bit tense, she decided she wanted me to get fish and chips for tea when I was picking up her new inhalers.

“She went to lie on her bed for a while after having her dinner, saying she was tired but she got up later saying she wanted to play with the Nintendo and watch Hollyoaks and Coronation Street.

“Just before eight she said she really needed her nebuliser but said she couldn’t make it up the stairs so James had to carry her up when he came in.

“We gave her four doses with the nebuliser but it didn’t seem to have any effect and then she jumped off the bed and told us we had to get an ambulance.

“The ambulance arrived really quickly but by then she was really traumatised and wasn’t responding to me so I just carried the oxygen bottle out once the paramedics got the mask on her.

“I dived in the ambulance with her but nothing seemed to be working and she just died there in the ambulance at the side of the road in Dundee.

“I think her body had just had enough and she couldn’t fight it any longer.”

Ironically, Courtney had been due to travel to Edinburgh again at the end of this month for further tests to find out if there were any underlying problems in her neck or throat which might have contributed to the severity of her asthma attacks.

Leora said, “We had been looking forward to finding out if there was something that hadn’t been found over the years but now, I suppose, we will never know for sure.

“I have asked for a post-mortem examination to be carried out and that is due to take place on Monday so, for our own peace of mind, it may be that we will at last be able to find out why Courtney’s asthma was so very bad.

“I am trying to stay strong for the rest of the girls but we are all taking this very badly and we just want to know why Courtney died like this.

“She was a lovely girl who, because of her illness and the amount of time she had to be off school, spent a lot more time with me at home that any of her sisters did.

“She loved school—she used to complain that the holidays were too long—and she also used to get me, and anyone else who she could get hold of, to help her with her arts and crafts projects.”