A four-year-old boy had both his legs amputated after being misdiagnosed by doctors four times – when it turned out he actually had a Strep A infection that turned into septic shock.
Tom O’Kane, 36, of Coventry, West Midlands, told MailOnline how his son Kaylan spent more than 80 days in hospital, more than a month of which was in intensive care, after his ordeal, with his family not sure if he would make it out alive.
It came after he was misdiagnosed with a mix of tonsillitis, hand, foot and mouth disease and a stomach bug around four times in only two months – with a doctor advising they just ‘give him a McDonald’s on the way home’ for the latter diagnosis.
But the boy, four, turned out to have a strep A bacterial infection which turned into septic shock, bringing on horrifying symptoms including blackened limbs, major liver and kidney failure and a serious risk of cardiac arrest.
Told it was the only thing that could save him, Kaylan’s father and mother made the difficult decision to have his legs amputated from mid-thigh down – and the young boy was only just discharged this weekend.
Business development manager Mr O’Kane described his son’s incredible positivity: ‘He’s very cheeky, he was flirting with all the nurses when he was there. He was a real character and everyone loved him in the hospital and even now, he’s got such a high spirit despite his condition.’
But the previously active, football mad young lad still finds it all hard to accept, his father said: ‘He just keeps saying, “I just want my old legs back”. And so, he does get upset and is very disappointed that he can’t do the things that he used to do.’
So, Mr O’Kane is on a mission to get his Coventry City-loving four-year-old back on his feet as soon as possible – and has set up a GoFundMe page, which has currently raised nearly £4,000, to start saving for the best prosthetic legs and rehabilitation.
Tom O’Kane (left), 36, of Coventry, West Midlands, told MailOnline how his son Kaylan (right) spent more than 80 days in hospital, more than a month of which was in intensive care, after his ordeal, with his family not sure if he would make it out alive
Mr O’Kane first took his son to the doctor in early October last year, after calling 111, because the boy ‘kept getting very ill’. He was diagnosed with tonsillitis at the walk-in centre and given antibiotics.
Over the next two months, he was prescribed around three more courses of antibiotics for tonsillitis.
No further testing was offered to check it was definitely tonsillitis and surgery was not considered as Kaylan was not thought to be getting the infection often enough to warrant it, Mr O’Kane said: ‘It was just antibiotics and, “Cheerio”.’
There was another occasion where Kaylan’s mother took him to A&E with a ‘bad rash’ on his face. He was diagnosed with hand, foot and mouth disease, a common childhood illness that usually gets better on its own.
But the parents later found out the tonsillitis and hand, foot and mouth disease were misdiagnoses. Their son actually had impetigo, a skin infection caused by strep A bacteria, that eventually turned into septic shock – which is life-threatening.
Not knowing this yet, Kaylan woke up one day in mid-December vomiting and shivering, with a high temperature – so they went to the doctor on the advice of the 111 operator. But the doctor was not worried.
Mr O’Kane explained: ‘The doctor said, “OK, yeah, it’s a stomach bug. He’ll be fine in a couple of days. Just give him some Calpol and give him a McDonald’s on the way home”.
‘So, that’s coming from a medical professional so we thought, “OK, maybe it’s right, maybe he doesn’t have an infection, maybe it is just viral this time”.
It came after he was misdiagnosed with a mix of tonsillitis, hand, foot and mouth disease and a stomach bug around four times in only two months – with a doctor advising they just ‘give him a McDonald’s on the way home’ for the latter diagnosis
‘They’re there to put your mind at ease, aren’t they? So, we just accepted what the doctor said.’
Kaylan’s mother took him home – but over the next 24 hours, his condition ‘just really declined, really rapidly’, Mr O’Kane said.
He explained: ‘His mum phoned me and said, “You need to come and have a look, I don’t think he’s right”. So, I turned up and yeah, he was completely floppy and limp and very confused.
‘He just kept shouting, “Hey, hey, hey!”, he just didn’t know where or what he was doing. It was really, really terrifying and straight away, I knew something wasn’t right.’
They called 111 and 999, to try to get an ambulance – but looking at a more than four-hour wait, they just took him to A&E themselves.
The father explained: ‘As soon as we went into the reception, we basically told them the symptoms and they just grabbed him off us and just started to work on him. They just kept saying, “Look, he’s really, really sick”.’
His strep A infection had become septic shock. Kaylan was quickly put on oxygen and because he was so swollen, the only place they could find a vein to inject antibiotics was in his shin: ‘Just that ordeal there was extremely traumatic.’
The little boy was in such a bad way that they had to transfer him to a different hospital, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, which has an intensive care unit.
But the boy turned out to have a strep A bacterial infection which turned into septic shock, bringing on horrifying symptoms including blackened limbs, major liver and kidney failure and a serious risk of cardiac arrest
His father said: ‘They did say at that point, “He may not survive the journey”. We were just breaking down. It was surreal.’
Luckily, Kaylan made it to the intensive care unit but the battle was not over – he was soon put on a dialysis machine and went into major liver and kidney failure.
Over the next 72 hours, doctors told the family, Mr O’Kane said: ‘”I’ve never seen a child this sick and the next hour will be crucial. If he makes it through the next few hours, I’ll be very surprised”.’
The father added: ‘They were basically saying that he probably will go into cardiac arrest at any point and there’s no point in doing any resuscitation.
‘And so, if he was going into cardiac arrest, they were planning not to intervene and not to try to resuscitate him.
‘So, they just basically openly said that they were going to unplug him and just pass him to one of us to let him say goodbye in our arms, basically. But against the odds again, he continued to fight.’
In a horrifying turn, the young boy’s arms and legs ‘were starting to go black’ over the coming days. The consultant surgeon said double amputation might be able to save him – so that is what they did, around four or five days after they first arrived at hospital, and the boy lost both his legs from mid-thigh down.
The choice to operate was risky, Mr O’Kane explained: ‘They were basically saying there’s a high chance that he may go into cardiac arrest on the operating table, while he’s in there, because of how weak he was.’
![Mr O'Kane said: '[Doctors] just basically openly said that they were going to unplug him and just pass him to one of us to let him say goodbye in our arms, basically. But against the odds again, he continued to fight'. Pictured: File photo](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/03/11/01/96050561-14484005-image-a-31_1741657332082.jpg)
Mr O’Kane said: ‘[Doctors] just basically openly said that they were going to unplug him and just pass him to one of us to let him say goodbye in our arms, basically. But against the odds again, he continued to fight’. Pictured: File photo
The four-hour surgery could have been deadly for their young son, he added: ‘We were encouraged to say goodbye before he went into the theatre because he may not come out alive.’
They felt such enormous relief, then, when Kaylan survived the operation, his father said: ‘When they brought him out and we could hear the beeping to signal that his heart was still going, it was relief.’
Mr O’Kane added: ‘I was running around, hugging all the surgeons and all the staff, just basically saying, “Thank you for doing what you’ve done and thank you for getting him out alive”. The whole family was just breaking down in relief.’
This was ‘a huge turning point’, he explained: ‘We started to think that maybe there’s a chance now that he will recover and he will survive.’
The young lad was then in intensive care for more than a month, where both his parents stayed with him every night. They were then moved on to a ward in mid-January and only just this weekend have they been able to bring Kaylan home permanently.
His father said: ‘It was really good just to have him back and have his presence back.’
It was a welcome end to a gruelling couple of months: ‘Every day was like Groundhog Day because we were hit with new challenges every day.
‘New consultants would have new concerns over his condition and the communication was quite poor as well so we didn’t really have a clear picture of where they were going.
The young lad was then in intensive care for more than a month, where both his parents stayed with him every night. They were then moved on to a ward in mid-January and only just this weekend have they been able to bring Kaylan home permanently. Pictured: File photo
‘And I think that was probably a lot to do with his condition. Because of how sick he was, I don’t think they really knew what the outcome was going to be.’
There is still a long road ahead, with rehabilitation and potential further surgeries to make his legs suitable for prosthetics – and ‘to this day’, his father added, ‘we don’t know if there’s any sort of long-term damage’.
So, Mr O’Kane is going to do a sponsored Three Peaks challenge this August to get Kaylan back to his childhood as fast as possible: ‘We want him to get the best possible legs going.
‘We don’t want to have any basic ones. He was so active beforehand and we feel like he’s already had such a huge step back and he will continue to have a setback. And we just want to get him back on the right path as soon as we can.’
He added: ‘Obviously, the NHS, they do support but very, very basic and minimum level and it just isn’t going to be quick enough. You’re talking years before he could potentially be able to walk again. So, I just want to do everything in my power to make sure that I can do it quicker.’
He said the NHS only covers the most basic prosthetic legs and that he thought the frequency of rehabilitation appointments it offers might not be enough for Kaylan to make quick progress.
The father is saving all the money he can to be able to give his son ‘rehabilitation at his comfort’, without indefinitely waiting for referrals, availability or to get to the top of a waiting list for prosthetic legs.
He concluded: ‘I just feel like I owe it to him to try and do what I can.’
Despite everything he has been through, Kaylan is still the smiley little boy he always was, his father said: ‘Just knowing that, it hasn’t affected his brain, he’s the same little boy, we can take comfort in that’. Pictured: File photo
Despite everything he has been through, Kaylan is still the smiley little boy he always was, his father said: ‘Just knowing that, it hasn’t affected his brain, he’s the same little boy, we can take comfort in that.’
The young boy spent his fourth birthday in hospital – but it would be the best birthday present ever if he could be walking again for his fifth, Mr O’Kane said: ‘It would be fantastic, to make up for him having to spend his fourth birthday in there.’
With both Mr O’Kane and his son being Coventry City season ticket holders, the father explained: ‘He does keep asking about his legs and he wants to know more about what happened and why they were taken away from him.’
But incredibly, he always remains positive, Mr O’Kane said: ‘He’s always smiling which is beyond belief, he amazes me every day.’
