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A coroner is to write to all schools to raise awareness of sepsis after a teenager died with the condition during a school history trip to New York.
Ana Uglow, 17, a pupil at Bristol Grammar School, collapsed in a hotel room and was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai West hospital just before Christmas in 2019.
During a five-day inquest at Avon coroner’s court, her parents, David and Natalia Uglow, said Ana had asked teachers if she could see a doctor two days before her death but allege this was “refused”.
In a statement to the court, Natalia Uglow claimed her daughter had said the teachers were “real history fanatics and all they cared about is chasing those sites and were very excited about them”.
The teachers, Rory Hambly and Ellice Clare, insisted that Ana only complained of feeling tired and having a cold, and did not directly ask to see a doctor.
Maria Voisin, the senior coroner for Avon, reached a narrative conclusion and said she could not find any “gross failings” by the teachers on the trip.
Outside court, Ana’s parents said there was “ample opportunity to get medical help that would have prevented her death”.
“The right place now to determine these issues is a civil action in the high court, and we intend to pursue this now the inquest has concluded,” they said.
Voisin said: “This case clearly demonstrates how awful this condition is and how tragic the consequences can be if left untreated. I will be making a report to raise sepsis awareness in all schools.”
She described Ana, who had aspired to go to Oxford University, as a “fit and healthy” 17-year-old who had developed influenza on the evening of 11 December. She left with the school party for the US on 14 December.
During a train journey from Washington to Philadelphia, Ana contacted her mother and told her she was worried she had a chest infection, had a fever and cough and felt out of breath.
Both Hambly and Clare recalled how Ana raised the possibility of going to a doctor with them but did not directly request to do so.
Ana woke Hambly at 6.15am on 19 December, telling him her heart was racing. At 7.30am, two friends Ana was sharing a hotel room awoke to find she had suffered a nose bleed. She was pale, struggling to form words and making noises as if in pain.
Ana told her friends: “I think I’m going mad” and “I can’t feel anything” before asking Hambly: “Why is this happening to me?”
She collapsed and was taken to hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 10am.
Two experts, Dr Chris Danbury, a consultant in intensive care medicine, and Prof Andrew Lever, an expert in infectious diseases, said Ana would have survived if given oral antibiotics on either 17 or 18 December.
Voisin concluded: “It is clear that Ana was ill throughout the entirety of the trip. She had influenza and pneumonia with group A streptococcus. Equally, it is clear that her body was able to compensate. The extent of the severity of her illness wasn’t apparent to those around her.”
Jaideep Barot, the headteacher of Bristol Grammar School, said the school would assist the coroner in raising awareness of sepsis among schools across the UK.
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