A seven-year-old girl has died after spraining her knee at school and doctors sent her home twice before her lips turned purple and they realised she had an enlarged liver.
Lorrane Victoria de Pontes hurt her knee when she took a fall at her school in the town of Capao Bonito in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo on Friday, 29th October.
The school called her mum, who went there to fetch her daughter to take her to hospital.
The two went to the Santa Casa de Capao Bonito hospital where the girl underwent an X-ray, was given medication and was sent home.
According to her family, her leg was in pain, she was vomiting and she had a fever.
While at home, her pain failed to subside and her leg swelled up, prompting her mum to take her back to hospital the following day.
Staff at the hospital put a splint on her leg and sent her home again.
However, the girl’s condition worsened and she had to be taken back to hospital for a third time the next day. It was only this time that she was seen by a paediatrician.
According to her family, by this point, her mouth had turned purple and she required oxygen.
New X-rays were done, and it was found that the girl’s liver was enlarged.
The paediatrician ordered her transfer to a hospital in the city of Sorocaba. However, she died en route on Sunday, 31st October.
Her body was sent to the morgue in the city of Itapetininga to undergo a post-mortem to determine the cause of death.
A police report has been filed, and the police will investigate the case to see if the girl’s school or the hospital she attended was at fault in any way.
