Jason Watkins details daughter’s tragic death due to sepsis
Jason Watkins and his wife Clara Francis have opened up about the tragic death of their two-year-old daughter Maude who sadly passed away due to sepsis on New Year’s Day in 2011.
The Nativity star and Clara spoke about the days leading up to their daughter’s death and how they have experienced guilt because of it.
Speaking to Giovanna Fletcher on her podcast, Happy Mum, Happy Baby, Jason explained, “She had a cold and a sore throat… we never thought it was serious and at that point, it probably wasn’t and it must’ve gone on for about a week and we were like, ‘Hang about, this should’ve shifted by now’, and we took her to the GP”.
“I was worried it had gone to her chest”, Jason admitted before revealing he was still worried about his daughter after the GP visit. Clara then took her to A&E and the toddler was given steroids.
Later, Clara said she found her daughter unable to breathe, “She couldn't find breath”, so the couple brought her to the hospital.
“She was losing consciousness and she was pale and floppy. So we then decided not to order an ambulance and we just got in the car because it was relatively near”, Watkins detailed.
“I was driving and you were in the front seat and we were trying to keep her awake by shouting. It was really awful for about 10 minutes,15 minutes to get to the hospital”.
The Catch star continued, “I ran into the hospital, into triage, and they sent her straight in to be treated… and after about an hour she was calmer”.
The paediatric consultant told Jason and Clara to take Maude home so she would be in more calmer and familiar surroundings as she seemed to be getting better after her temperature went back to normal and she was given air.
“It didn’t feel right at the time, this is where the guilt comes in of course”, Jason said before his wife added, “When you hear that and you hear how ill she was, you just think, ‘How could they have let her go home?’”.
After spending around two hours in the hospital, the pair returned home with their daughter, not knowing she had sepsis at the time.
Recalling putting her daughter to bed that night in her cot, giggling as normal, Clara recalled the heartbreaking moment their other daughter Bessie told them she couldn't wake her sister up the next morning.
“Bessie came in our room because she shared a room with Maude and she said, ‘I can’t wake up Maude’, and I just knew. There was a part of me, my motherly instinct was, ‘She is really ill’, but because the doctors kept saying, ‘It’s okay, she’s fine’, I was like, ‘Oh okay’”.
“When I look back, my instinct was, ‘No, this is really serious’, and I wish I had been more trusting of my instinct”.
“To know that your child could potentially be a 14-year-old girl, going out and having a really fabulous life when it didn’t happen for her is particularly difficult”, Francis added.
Six months after their daughter's passing, an inquest into Maude's death was carried out because she had been discharged from hospital twice within 24 hours. This is when they discovered she unfortunately had sepsis.
