PICTURED: BABY Martin Stott was just five weeks old when he was struck down by encephalitis.

THE death of little Lee Deakin from the brain infection encephalitis brought back painful memories for Phil Stott. Phil's own five week old son, Martin, died in similar circumstances three years ago.

Phil, of Fairclough Street, Earlestown, explained: "When I saw the front page of the Star last week I couldn't believe that virtually the same thing had happened to another family.

"Three years ago, I and my wife, Debra, went through the same nightmare. We were still elated after Martin's birth and were typical proud parents. But then everything went horribly wrong. When he was four weeks old Martin became ill - he had a temperature and was refusing his feeds. So we rang the emergency doctor who came out and examined Martin. He thought Martin may be suffering from colic, but advised us to keep an eye on him.

"The next day the baby seemed a little better, but even so Debra cancelled a Christmas night out with her workmates to look after him. In the evening he seemed to deteriorate, so we rang the out of hours service.

"We had a terrible time just trying to get past the receptionist, but eventually he agreed to call the doctor out.

"When he arrived, the doctor just put his hand on Martin's forehead and said, 'It's probably colic'. He told us that we were probably worrying uneccesarily because Martin was our first baby and at most he spent four minutes in the house."

Within just a few hours Martin's condition deteriorated greatly.

Phil (31) a student teacher, recalls: "At about 4am, Debra woke me up screaming, she said that Martin wasn't responding. When I got to him he was just staring, he didn't seem to notice anything going on around him.

"We bundled him in to the car and rushed him to Warrington Hospital, where he had been born on November 13. Within several hours of getting him there, he was transferred to Alder Hey's Intensive Care Unit suffering from the brain infection encephalitis, which causes swelling to the brain." A week later Phil and Debra were told the infection had caused so much damage to their tiny son's brain that he would not be able to survive without the aid of medical machines and the couple had to make the hardest decision of their lives, whether to switch the ventilator off.

The couple decided that it was in Martin's best interests to switch off the ventilator.

Phil, who is now the proud dad of two-year-old twins Anthony and Christopher, explains: "The decision to switch off the machine was the hardest decision we have ever had, and will ever have, to make.

"But our trauma did not end there. Due to the kind of service we received, we made an official complaint. We realise Martin would probably have died as a result of the infection anyway, but as far as we are concerned, our son underwent unnecessary suffering and something had to be done.

"A year later our case was discussed at a hearing with the health authority. A panel of three doctors and three lay persons found in our favour." Phil added: "When we won our case we honestly thought lessons had been learned, but three years on with the death of Lee Deakin it seems our attempts to stop this happening again were in vain."

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