Grandmother cheated death after hospital administer overdose

Rachael Emes, 47, suffered a heart attack and epileptic seizures as a result of the incident at Watford General Hospital, and needed an extended stay in intensive care, as well as extensive support from her family when she was able to return home. She continues to experience ongoing chest pains as a result of fluid around her heart, as well as trauma.

She was wrongly given an intravenous (IV) does of adrenaline only five minutes after an initial dose by injection, following a reaction to an antibiotic that had previously been prescribed to her. Adrenaline given via IV should only be done by a senior consultant, or under their supervision.

A serious incident report by West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust found that a junior doctor who administered the 20ml dose – ten times the advised 1 or 2mls – had “panicked” after Rachael’s reaction to the medication and the fact the initial dose of adrenaline failed to have an effect.

As a result of the incident, which medics conceded could have been fatal, Rachael – a grandmother to 10-month-old Nelly and mother-of-two - says the impact on her life has been “massive”.

She struggles to work due to fatigue and is haunted by the events of that day in March 2021 – but while she has been told she needs counselling to deal with her ordeal, she cannot access it via the NHS and has to fund it privately.

“It is absolutely horrific that something so simple could go so wrong. The doctor shouldn’t have administered the adrenaline by IV, he wasn’t qualified to do that, and it has caused my life to be turned upside down,” says Rachael, who runs her own cleaning business in Hemel Hempstead.

“Psychologically, it has been terrible. I have had nightmares about what happened and have woken up screaming, knowing I could have died. When I feel the pains in my chest, which I still have as a result of what happened, I start to panic in case I am having another heart attack.

“I struggle to work and have to oversee a lot of work rather than doing it myself, which is really hard. I have a successful business but this has stopped me from doing so much. My husband was also traumatised by what happened and he tries to support me as best he can, but it’s really hard. We have had no support – we were told we would have to pay for our own counselling, we couldn’t get it on the NHS, even though this was caused by the NHS. I don’t understand it.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get over what happened. I can never trust that hospital to treat me again, knowing how close I came to dying through their error.”

Rachael was supported in finding answers from West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust and securing a settlement by law firm Slater and Gordon.

Katie Payne, solicitor in the clinical negligence team, says: “Rachael is forced to live with lifelong consequences as a result of this shocking incident, in which a doctor who was not qualified to administer adrenaline gave her ten times the recommended dose. This could so easily have been a fatal incident we were dealing with.

“Rachael is haunted by what happened and how close she came to losing her life as a result of putting her trust in medics. Lessons need to be learned urgently at this hospital, and processes put in place to enforce this, to ensure that a wholly avoidable incident of this kind does not happen again.”