Girl, 8, hospitalised with infection after swallowing sea water on family trip

An eight-year-old girl had to be rushed to hospital after a family trip to the beach left her infected with a dangerous bacterium.

Keeva Hollow was swimming with her twin sister at Dorset’s Avon Beach when she was hit by a wave and swallowed seawater.

The next day she was lethargic, with a high temperature and no appetite, and her mum realised something was wrong.

Her mum, Aisling McCarthy said: ‘She used to swim all the time, a real water baby. But now I can’t see her ever going in the sea again; she is so scared of becoming sick again.’

Aisling had taken Keeva and her twin sister Cornelia to Avon Beach on August 3 when a wave hit Keeva and she began sputtering.

‘She came out and said she had swallowed a lot of water. Cornelia had not at all, and I didn’t worry too much at the time,’ she said.

‘But the next morning Keeva would not eat her breakfast. We were going to London, and she slept the whole journey. Her temperature was going up, and she just was not herself.’

After taking Keeva to an out-of-hours doctor, they took a urine sample and found there was blood in Keeva’s stool.

‘I had seen a documentary about sewage pollution in water, and I realised that Keeva’s symptoms were similar to those of a girl who died from polluted seawater. I told the doctor I was taking her to A&E and rushed there,’ she said.

‘Keeva was put on a drip while tests were carried out. She was so ill by then; she had deteriorated so quickly it was frightening.’

Keeva spent two days in hospital, where she was diagnosed with a Campylobacter infection.

Aisling said: ‘The hospital said it can be food poisoning as well but Keeva does not eat meat which is one of the main sources of that bacteria.

‘Her illness happened straight after the sea-swallowing incident at Avon Beach, and Cornelia has not been ill at all. I have a very clear memory of that moment when the wave hit Keeva, seeing her spluttering from swallowing the water. I am convinced that was what caused her to become so ill.’

Aisling says Keeva is still not back to full health, adding: ‘She was always a very sporty girl but she now gets out of breath quickly. She used to keep up with me on a 5km run, but now she struggles to do 1km.

‘She has lost a ton of weight, and her clothes are hanging off her. But the saddest thing is her fear of going into the sea.’

Aisling contacted Wessex Water, which manages wastewater and environmental protection for the River Stour, notifying them about Keeva and asking for any information on recent sewage leakages. But she has not received a reply yet.

BCP Council sent a letter to Aisling, having been notified by the hospital of Keeva’s infection, but the letter was focused on food poisoning, Aisling said.

‘I replied saying I believed it was seawater, not food, but they claimed they had had no other reports of people becoming ill from swimming in the sea,’ she said.

‘I was shocked by their attitude because surely, as a huge tourism area due to its beautiful beaches, BCP should be concerned about what has happened to Keeva. But they don’t appear to be.’

Recent tests of the River Stour, which flows into the sea at Christchurch, showed ‘extremely unsafe’ levels of E. coli.

Martin Stewart, managing director of Stewarts Garden centers and chair of the Christchurch Harbour & Marine Society, said testing on August 19 showed E.coli levels of 300,000 – the safe bathing level is 1,000.

He also found several other concerning levels of bacteria in his samples.
Aisling says her family’s idyllic life of living by the ocean has now been shattered.

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