A sports-mad teenager was placed into a coma after she suffered a stroke aged just 15. Lily Alford suffered a brain aneurysm following a trampolining accident and was taken by helicopter to hospital.
She was due to have an operation at 2am but her aneurysm ruptured. After two operations Lily, from Tonyrefail, Rhondda Cynon Taf, was sent to an intensive care ward where and later underwent two weeks of physio to regain her mobility.
She was transferred from Bristol to Cardiff to finish her recovery after the stroke in June 2022. One year on Lily is back doing what she loves playing sport and has returned to the hospital to thank staff who saved her life.
Lily said: "I am 15 and last year I had a stroke. I will never forget the kindness of the staff at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children (BRHC). We arrived in a helicopter on 14th June last year and I went straight to Daisy Ward.
"We knew that I had an aneurysm but I didn't know what that meant and I was scared. The only thing going through my head was: ‘When can I get back to training?’ I was to have an operation the next morning but my aneurysm had other ideas and it ruptured at about 2am.
"After many hours and two operations I went to Seahorse PICU ward in an induced coma. My family sat and waited for me to wake up. They were told this may not happen and if it did happen I would almost certainly be a very different child from the feisty, sports-mad girl I had been.
"I did wake up. I started communicating with my eyes then slowly I progressed to moving my legs and arms. The lovely nurses and physios were so kind to me – they made me laugh and talked to me all the time. They also encouraged me through my love of sport. I was there for two weeks.
"I was then moved to Daisy Ward where I did physio every day and finally stood up – no-one could believe it. I was determined I would get better. I was absolutely driven to be well again. With lots of love and support from family and nurses all of my 19 tubes were finally removed including my tracheostomy tube so I was able to talk and eat.
"I was on Daisy for another two weeks. When I was well enough I was transferred to Cardiff. A year later I am so much better. Sport has played such a huge part in my recovery, especially my mental health.
"I am back powerlifting and running and any spare time I have I'm in the gym. I'm also back in full-time school. I have become an ambassador for a hospital charity in Cardiff and that has really helped me.
"Over my journey I have met so many amazing people who I will never forget. Just before the first-year anniversary of my injury my mother asked me what I would like to do to celebrate – she said I could do anything. I wanted to come back to BRHC and see Mr Fellows, the doctor who saved my life.
"I also wanted to go back on the wards and see the nurses who looked after me when I was so ill. So that's what we did and it was a lovely day. We saw Mr Fellows, went onto PICU Ward and Daisy Ward and saw some of the lovely nurses who all remembered me and we laughed and talked and laughed some more.
"It really helped me with my recovery as I had very little memory of the wards so I found it very therapeutic. I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who was kind to me, looked after me and kept me alive.”
A Bristol Royal Hospital for Children spokesman said: ''We were thrilled to catch up with Lily and her family who came to visit the clinical teams who looked after them a year ago. Thank you, Lily, for coming to see us and for sharing your very brave story."
Her mum Karen previously explained how her daughter spent four days in a come. She said: "Over the next few days we were told Lily was critical. We were taken into a side room and given the devastating news that they may need to withdraw life support. If she were to wake up she would be brain dead or severely disabled and she was given under a 5% chance of a full recovery.
"Life had gone from completely normal to a living nightmare in just a few days. My brain just couldn't link the person I saw in that hospital bed to the girl I'd always known. She was a mass of tubes and machines and things that beeped and bandages. I thought I was either going home without her or I was going home with a completely different child who would need specialist equipment, a different school, and constant care. It was devastating."
Lily's parents Karen and Mark were informed by medics that the aneurysm had been there for years and that if it had not been for the trampolining accident – and the timing that led them to be in hospital when it ruptured – it was highly unlikely that Lily would have survived at all.
After spending several days in a coma Lily began to wake up and would open and close her eyes if her mum was talking to her or playing a playlist her twin brother James had made. Karen added: "Lily looked at me and blinked deliberately as if she understood what I was saying. Then I asked her to blink if should understood me – and she blinked.
"Over the next few days we communicated by blinking for 'yes' and 'no'. From there she progressed to slightly nodding her head and then moving her left arm."
