By Emily Caulkett-
A misplaced breathing tube contributed to the death of a 13-year-old boy who became the UK’s first known child victim of COVID, a coroner has found.
Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, of Brixton, southwest London, died of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), caused by COVID-19 pneumonia on 30 March 2020.
At the time, his death was included in statistics as death caused by Covid-19. Only now are the true details of his death coming out.
The poor lad died at King’s College Hospital in London three days after testing positive for the virus.
Ismail’s family members were not able to be with him when he died in King’s College Hospital and were also unable to attend his funeral because they were self-isolating after some of his siblings experienced Covid symptoms.
Four people wearing protective clothing, gloves and face masks lowered his coffin into a south-east London grave in April 2020.
It has been revealed that hours before his death, an endotracheal tube (ET) – which helps patients breathe – was found to be in the wrong position and a decision was made by a consultant in paediatric intensive care to leave it and monitor him.
He suffered a cardiac arrest before he died.
Senior Coroner Andrew Harris said: “I am satisfied that he (Ismail) would not have died when he did were it not for the tube misplacement.”
He said the tube becoming displaced was “the trigger” that led to Ismail’s “unexpected” cardiac arrest.
Mr Harris said “misplaced ET” and “high BMI” should be recorded under ARDS, and COVID-19 pneumonia on Ismail’s death certificate.
However, he made it clear that although the tube’s positioning contributed to Ismail’s death, he did not find that the boy would not have died at another time had there been no misplacement.
He died from “complications of necessary medical treatment for a natural disease”.
Ismail’s elder sister said her brother first fell ill on 23 March 2020.
He was admitted to hospital on 26 March after experiencing fever, coughing, shortness of breath, vomiting and diarrhoea.
The next day he was put into intensive care and tested positive for COVID, without his family due to hospital policies at the time.
Seven days before his death, Boris Johnson announced the first national lockdown in the UK.
The teenager’s elder sister previously described her brother as a “kind and genuine soul”.
His family were also unable to attend his funeral as they were self-isolating after some of his siblings displayed COVID symptoms.
Matt Hancock, who was the health secretary and the father of a 13-year-old child himself, previously said Ismail dying without a parent at his bedside “made me weep”.
In April 2020, four people wearing protective clothing and face masks lowered his coffin into a southeast London grave.
The revelation is another example of how covid deaths were exaggerated during the height of the pandemic, with external contributing factors like the case of the young boy, often left out of the public domain during the scaremongering period designed to keep the public on lockdown.
Covid-19 was truly a virus going round at the time, about which caution was necessary, but not to the heightened degree of fear being circulated.
With this latest revelation, once can only wonder how many more of such stories are yet to emerge.
There has been no word about whether the family of the young teenager will be compensated for the blunder. They really should.