'They stopped the life support and within minutes she was gone': Tragedy of teen who died weeks after Majorca holiday

Leah Rogers was a typical 17-year-old girl who "loved life" and "loved people". At school she had achieved As and Bs in her 12 GCSEs and planned to train as an intensive care nurse. The teenager from Briton Ferry adored her older siblings and her niece and nephew and had a big group of friends.

But last year when she came back from her first parents-free holiday with what seemed to be a bad case of tonsillitis – something she often came down with – Leah and her family had no idea that she only had weeks left to live.

Leah was very mature for her age, explained mum Kath Rogers, 57. Her friends would refer to her as the 'mother' of the group and she was known as the organised one. Leah and her elder sister had planned to go on holiday to Palma Nova in May last year with a group of friends. The family had visited the holiday destination in Majorca many times and it was one of Leah's favourite places.

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When Leah's sister was no longer able to make the trip her parents were reluctant to let Leah go as she was still only 17. But they decided she would be sensible enough to go along with some of her sister's older friends and she went ahead with the holiday. Leah had a fabulous time but a couple of days after she came back from the trip she fell ill. Her parents rang the out-of-hours surgery and Leah was then prescribed antibiotics.

But she was taken to hospital twice in the following week as the symptoms were getting worse. "It got to the point where she took an accidental overdose of paracetamol because she took too many painkillers," explained Kath.

After days of not seeing any improvements to her condition she was prescribed with a different course of antibiotics. But when Kath realised the hospital had not given her enough tablets to last for 10 days as prescribed she returned to the hospital alone only to be told Leah had to accompany her in order to be given any more medication.

"It's as if that was meant to happen," said Kath as when they returned to the hospital together the consultant met with Leah and decided she needed to be admitted to hospital. "We thought we'd finally see an improvement so we felt a bit more at ease. But by the Tuesday she was getting pain in her abdomen. When the doctors came to see her straightaway they said she had glandular fever," explained Kath.

Kath said she knew this meant Leah could not receive treatment as glandular fever just had to run its course but Leah was not eating or drinking due to the pain in her throat. Doctors agreed that as soon as she could drink and eat she could go home. Due to the pain near her liver Leah was still taken for blood tests.

The next day doctors told Leah's parents that the blood tests had shown she had liver failure. "From there then it escalated. They said she needed to go to a specialist centre in Birmingham. They told us she would possibly need a liver transplant and they were trying to get a bed for her in Birmingham," said Kath.

Leah was taken into intensive care in Princess of Wales Hospital, Bridgend. She was starting to get confused and trying to get out of her bed and staff told Leah's family they would put her on life support before being transferred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. "I thought they'd just put her on life support for the journey and then when we got to Birmingham they'd wake her up. But they never woke her up. They then realised it was far more serious than we had anticipated," said Kath.

That weekend Leah's parents followed their daughter to Birmingham and stayed in a nearby hotel. "On the Sunday the doctors said they were getting the haematologists involved because they now thought it was something else going on. They said it could be one of two things.

"They thought it might be leukaemia or they thought it might be a condition called HLH. The doctor said: 'Please don't Google it.' Of course that's the first thing we did. Oh gosh. It hit me like a sledge hammer. It was awful," said Kath. HLH, or haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, is a life-threatening immune condition which causes the body to react inappropriately to a ‘trigger’, usually an infection.

While doctors originally told the family they would get the results within 10 days more information came sooner than expected. But it turned out to be devastating news. Leah was officially diagnosed with HLH. "Basically there was no more treatment they could do for her. I organised for somebody to bring my son and daughter up. We didn't know how long she had but we knew it wasn't very long," she said.

"They came up on the Monday afternoon and we could just see Leah was deteriorating in front of our eyes. We thought: 'This is just cruel.' We couldn't do it anymore. It was prolonging things for her and prolonging things for us. So we had the discussion with the doctors and asked is there anything else you can do for her to give her any kind of chance and the answer was no basically," said Kath.

"We made the heartbreaking decision to start decreasing the medication. They then stopped the life support and within minutes she was gone. It was about three o'clock in the morning. We thought we might have had days but it turned into hours." Leah sadly died on June 7, just three months before her 18th birthday.

Kath said that in some ways she was grateful that Leah was put on life support before the family knew the severity of the situation. "It gives us some comfort that she wasn't scared or awake when we were told there was nothing they could do for her.

"It just all happened so quickly, really. It was absolutely devastating. We've since been back and I made arrangements to go see the consultant at the Bridgend hospital," said Kath. She said that between the three liver specialist consultants at the hospital with 90 years' experience between them and they had never treated anyone with the condition before.

"You don't ever expect to lose your child. It is the hardest thing ever. I don't know if we'll ever get over it. It's the worst thing imaginable. We've just had to learn to live with it the best we can. Leah achieved so many things in her life and it just made us realise you have to live life to the full and value what you've got," said Kath.

"We want to raise awareness of the condition and help find a cure. The support we've had from the community has realised what good people we have around us. It's meant a lot to us as a family. We want people to keep talking about Leah," she added.

Leah's dad Hugh, 58, said he relived those tragic final days of Leah's life every day. But he said he hoped Leah's story would inspire others to realise what they had before it was too late. "The reality of the situation made us realise: never take life for granted. People don't realise what they have until it's taken away," he said.

Leah loved going out with her friends and the close group would regularly visit Aberavon Beach and enjoy barbecues together, her parents explained. Her friends still visit Kath and Hugh and keep them updated on their group holidays and how much they miss their friend that they lost too soon, said Kath.

Her friends and family have got tattoos to remember her with and her friends even take along a cardboard cutout of Leah out with them to make sure she continues to be part of important events like birthdays. This year the family visited Palma Nova and scattered some of Leah's ashes there as it was one of her favourite places.

Last year the family raised more than £20,000 for the charity Histio UK through a fundraiser which also marked Leah's 18th birthday at a local pub. This month they will be putting on another fundraiser to celebrate Leah's life and raise funds for the charity. Tickets are £10 each and the evening will include live artists, raffles, games and a DJ. The night to remember Leah will take place on Saturday, September 9, from 6.30pm until late at JK's in Briton Ferry. Tickets are available at JK's and any donations or payments to the charity can be made via PayPal to leahrhistiouk@outlook.com.