Brock lost both parents young. Now he's grieving a daughter who could have been saved

Sydney Morning Herald

26-05-2025

A two-year-old who died in a regional NSW hospital should have received treatment immediately after recording a heart rate in the 'red zone' for potential sepsis, but she did not because emergency staff were inundated with critically ill patients including another child needing resuscitation, an inquest into her death has heard.
Pippa White died at Orange Base Hospital on June 13, 2022, less than a day after visiting the emergency department at Cowra Hospital with vomiting, diarrhoea and lethargy. She had been recovering from COVID-19 two weeks earlier.
She recorded a heart rate of 171 beats per minute when she was first triaged about 2pm on the day before her death.
A heart rate that high would be considered in the 'red zone' for potential sepsis, and it ought to have automatically triggered a rapid response from doctors, the inquest heard on Monday.
Nikota Potter-Bancroft, the nurse who triaged Pippa at the Cowra emergency department, told the inquest she did not believe the toddler met the criteria for sepsis, despite accepting the high heart rate would normally result in a rapid response.
'She didn't look like a toxic child to me,' Potter-Bancroft told the inquest.
The nurse assessed Pippa as a category 3 patient, but said she did not think the toddler would have been treated within the recommended 30-minute timeframe because the department's two nurses and one doctor were preparing to treat an eight-year-old who was being resuscitated in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.