An eight-year-old boy almost died after getting food poisoning after eating at a hotel in Turkey, said his mother as the family recounted their horror experience of the vacation.
School dinner lady Natalie Parr, 36, of Manchester, said her son Jaxon Bentley has been left “a shell of what he used to be” and suffering kidney failure after contracting salmonella from a portion of eggs during a stay at the Eftalia Ocean Hotel in Antalya.
Jaxon was rushed to hospital with severe stomach cramps, diarrhoea, and a high temperature just three days into a one-week holiday
Natalie said he was eventually able to fly back to Britain, where an ambulance was waiting to take him to a UK clinic. His symptoms were later diagnosed as being the result of two forms of salmonella, one of which can cause death and neurological damage.
For several weeks, Jaxon was taken in and out of hospital, an experience his mum says has left him traumatised and unable to make a full recovery even six months later.
Natalia said: “Jaxon is back at home and while we’ve tried to go back to a normal life, we’re not there yet. He still cannot eat properly without pain. A once lively, outgoing boy went on holiday to Turkey came back a shell of what he used to be and the change is simply heart-breaking.
“My son has been replaced by a quiet, subdued boy, still traumatised by the experience, with night terrors meaning he’s afraid to sleep as well as afraid to eat. The thought of any other family going through this is too much to think about, so we knew we had to speak out on this.’
She added: “If we can help prevent others going through the hell we are going through, that will be some comfort. For us, all we really want is the boy who went away on holiday to come back to us.”
The boy and his mother were part of a group of six, which included three other children, who travelled to a Turkish resort in June of the previous year.
Upon his initial discharge from the UK clinic, Jaxon had shed over a stone in weight and was so feeble that he needed a wheelchair for assistance.
Despite undergoing a course of antibiotics, there was no improvement in his condition, leading to his urgent readmission to the hospital a week later.
During his subsequent hospitalization, various procedures were performed, such as a lumbar puncture and two brain scans conducted under general anaesthesia, before he was discharged once more. Since then he’s been unable to put on weight, and has remained in a wheelchair, too weak to do more than half days at school and having to do regular blood tests to monitor his health.
Natalie said: “We’d all been looking forward so much to this holiday but due to Jaxon’s illness, it’s now one we’ll remember forever for all the wrong reasons. He became so very ill, so quickly, that we knew it was more than just a typical upset stomach.
“It was frightening to have to see him in hospital and it was horrible to see what he was going through and see him becoming visibly weaker before our eyes. We knew we had to try to get him to a hospital at home if we possibly could and the flight home was the stuff of nightmares.
“He was so visibly ill and in pain that passengers on the plane cried seeing him in that condition. No one would believe someone could be so ill from a gastric illness or that the effects could be so serious. You feel so helpless when you can’t do anything for your own child and I wish it could have been me instead of him.”
