Tragedy of 'lovely' boy, 7, who died hours after being sent home from hospital

A little boy who died hours after being discharged from hospital had "looked well" during his A&E consultation, an inquest has heard.

Adam Soeb Bapu was rushed to Royal Bolton Hospital at around 9.30pm on April 1 - his seventh birthday - as he was “struggling to breathe” and felt lethargic, Bolton Coroner’s Court was told. He had also been vomiting and suffered from a “slight cough” in the week before.

After being triaged, he was seen by emergency clinician Dr Shanmugam on the Accident and Emergency ward. Dr Shanmugam told the court that Adam’s vital signs were all normal and that he discovered no laboured breathing or other causes for concern such as tracheal tug.

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He added that Adam "looked well" and diagnosed him with a viral respiratory tract infection. Due to Adam’s presentation, Dr Shanmugam discharged him and recommended a Beconase nasal spray to help alleviate his symptoms.

After returning to his family home in the Halliwell area of Bolton, Adam’s mum Tosifa Bapu noted that his breathing was “noisy”. As she was concerned about him, she decided to let Adam sleep in her king size bed with her that night, so she could keep an eye on him.

Mrs Bapu woke up at around 2.45am on the morning of April 2 and discovered that Adam was not breathing. He was rushed back to hospital but despite the attempts of his dad and paramedics to resuscitate him, Adam was pronounced dead at 4.03am.

Senior coroner Timothy Brennand asked Dr Shanmugam whether he would have done anything differently with the benefit of hindsight. He responded: “This is a question I keep asking myself and I have asked senior [doctors] and they said they would have done the same thing I did.