BUBBLY Danielle Smith can smile at her mum unaware that last weekend she was fighting for her life against the potential killer disease meningitis.

The bonny blonde four-year-old was diagnosed with suspected meningitis last Friday after her mum Mary, 24, spotted the tell-tale rash on her shoulder, face and eye.

She said: "The spots didn't disappear when I put a glass over them. I knew what to look for because I had seen it on GMTV. The TV programme saved my daughter's life."

Paramedics rushed Danielle into Burnley General Hospital and she was later transferred to the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Pendlebury, where she was put on a ventilator in intensive care.

Mary, who has four children and lives in Chessington Green, Kibble Bank, Burnley, said it was heartbreaking to see her daughter unconscious in the hospital bed attached by tubes to various monitors.

And doctors told her had it been a couple of hours later when she spotted how ill Danielle was she wouldn't have been here today.

But Danielle, a pre-school nursery child at Reedley Primary School, has not let the illness get her down as she bounds around her home which is filled with cards made by her school pals.

Mary said: "At first when she was ill I thought it was a 24-hour thing because my son James, five, had been ill previously and Damian, two, had also been poorly.

"She always gets up early and when she had not woken at 7.30am I went to her room and she had wet the bed. I moved her to bath her and she was sick and then I spotted the rash.

"I still can't remember how I got from the top of the stairs to the hallway, but I remember hearing the ambulance controller telling me not to panic.

"Danielle is always on the go and always so busy, if I could have changed places with her in that hospital I would have. It didn't really sink in how ill she really was, but she was obviously determined to fight it."

Mary, who also has a one-year-old daughter Jessica, described the hospital staff at Burnley and Pendlebury as "brilliant" and said she will be taking Danielle back to the Manchester hospital when she is fully recovered so she can thank the medics.

She said: "I owe my life to them because they saved Danielle's."

Mary also praised her family, especially her two sisters Ann and Sandra who helped look after the children while Danielle was in hospital, and her mum Mary who flew over from Belfast.

"I wouldn't like any other parent to go through this," she said. "It tears you apart. If anyone sees the signs of meningitis don't hesitate you must get help immediately.

"Do not leave it because it could be too late."

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