For every mother to see her child suffer to death is a nightmare, and such is the case of Rachel Profitt, a mother who continues to be haunted by the suffering and death of her daughter after contracting a lethal strain of the E.coli bacteria.
Her four-year-old daughter Serena Faith Profitt died on Tuesday at the Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, Oregon.
In various reports, Rachel admitted the final moments of suffering of Serena continue to haunt her. She said she can’t sleep at night because her daughter’s face, tears, or screams are in her mind.
"I can't be here. I want to go home,” Rachel recalled Serena saying.
Rachel stated how it all began. She said her daughter started to get sick on Aug. 31, complaining of tummy aches while on a family trip to Oregon coast for Labor Day. She would go to the bathroom every now and then.
When the aches won’t go away, they took her to Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital on Sept. 3. Gathered reports say the hospital found that the vital signs of Serena were all normal.
Serena’s parents showed to KATU NEWS the hospital forms from Samaritan’s that has hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) as its initial diagnosis as well. They were never confined to the said facility, however.
"If I have your report and it says diagnosis No. 1 is HUS, how do you just send us home without following that? How do you send us home without pursuing that lead, your No. 1 lead," Serena's father Steven Profitt said.
In the next few days, however, Serena became weaker that she couldn’t even bring herself to the bathroom, which prompted them to bring her to Willamette Valley Hospital in McMinnville on Sept. 6. Following stool and blood tests, the hospital realized right away that something was wrong with the child, saying the latter has acute kidney failure.
They were then sent to Doernbecher Children's Hospital where she was found to have HUS. HUS is linked to E.coli O157:H7 bacteria, described to be among its most deadly strains. Such E.coli strain resides in intestines of deer, cattle and other animals.
Later, Serena suffered a stroke. To ease the brain swelling, she was operated. Surgeons, however, found through a test that she lost brain function. She was pronounced dead on Tuesday at 2:30 am.
A playmate of Serena, Bradley Sutton, likewise suffered kidney failure following the Labor Day weekend and got diagnosis of E. coli O157:H7. Sutton is reported to be in good condition.
Oregon Live said the two playmates shared a turkey sandwich as well as went on a swim together in a pond in Lebanon City in Oregon with other people. It added that health officials remain clueless on how the two children got the E.coli infection.
