Latest news with #Blantyre
The Sun
17-07-2025
- The Sun
Scots wife left husband covered in blood after savaging his private parts after he refused sex
A WIFE left her hubby covered in blood after grabbing his testicles and twisting them when he denied her sex. Frustrated Sharon Irvine, 55, clawed at partner David's privates as they lay in bed at home in Blantyre, Lanarkshire, leaving him needing stitches. 3 3 The agonising attack saw her admit to assault to severe injury — but the couple are still together. A court heard that she ferociously attacked her husband's testicles after hearing him 'pleasuring himself' instead of having sex with her. She then called cops on herself, telling them: 'There's a lot of blood'. Mr Irvine, whose scrotum was torn open in the horror — was taken to hospital where medics stitched the wound. He refused to give an official statement to police but confirmed his spouse of 14 years had 'grabbed, pulled and twisted' him, Hamilton Sheriff Court heard. Irvine, 55, pleaded guilty to assault to severe injury as her husband watched. They're both absolutely mortified and just want to put it behind them. They're very much still together A source The couple are still together following the bedroom bloodbath at their home in Blantyre, Lanarkshire, in January. Prosecutor Sinead Corrigan said: 'She stated that she had heard him pleasuring himself and that had angered her because he was not engaging in sexual activity with her. "She then grabbed him and caused injury.' Sheriff Kevin McCallum KC told Irvine: 'This is a very unfortunate set of circumstances, highly regrettable, and there is no doubt embarrassment on all sides. Two men hacked XL Bully dogs with meat cleaver & knife in horrific attack in Scots street "But it is quite serious, as whatever went on to cause you to behave in that way, a quite significant injury was caused.' Mr Irvine last night declined to comment and his wife was unavailable. A source said: 'They're both absolutely mortified and just want to put it behind them. They're very much still together.' This is a very unfortunate set of circumstances, highly regrettable, and there is no doubt embarrassment on all sides Sheriff Kevin McCallum KC Sheriff McCallum deferred sentence until next month for background reports and continued Irvine's bail. American John Wayne Bobbitt hit headlines in 1993 after his wife Lorena chopped off his penis and threw it away. It was found, reattached, and he famously went on to star in porn movies.
Daily Mail
09-07-2025
- Daily Mail
Urgent appeal for a stowaway cat which travelled 400 miles to Scotland to be reunited with her owners
An urgent appeal is underway to find the owners of a cat found in the engine of a minibus after a 400-mile journey from England. The pet jumped out of the vehicle at the Park of Hamilton depot in Blantyre, Lanarkshire, yesterday (Wed) following a trip from South Mimms, in Hertfordshire, via Staffordshire and Lancashire. She has been handed over to the charity Cats Protection's centre where a vet checked her over. The cat, named Scout by volunteers, is thought to be around a year old. Although dirty from its adventure the moggy has escaped her ordeal otherwise unharmed. The charity is now desperately trying to find her owners to return her home. Deputy centre manager Rachael Ward said: 'The first thing Scout did was eat an entire pouch of food in one go before settling down for a two-hour nap - clearly thankful for some safety and absolutely exhausted. 'She is underweight but otherwise in good body condition, just very dirty from her travels. Surprisingly, and thankfully, she is completed uninjured after her ordeal. 'Scout is a domestic shorthair, white and tortoiseshell in colour, with quite distinctive markings. We're hopeful that with enough attention, her owner will recognise her. 'Sadly, Scout is not microchipped. We would be so, so grateful if people could share her story. It would be a miracle to reunite her with her owner.' Ms Ward added that photographic evidence would be needed to reclaim Scout.
The Guardian
03-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
‘Delay is catastrophic': how instant antibiotics could save thousands of African children in comas
For the hundreds of children who arrive every day at hospitals in parts of Africa unconscious and unresponsive, their survival chances have remained unchanged for nearly 50 years. But new research is raising hopes that swift treatment with antibiotics could improve those chances. Despite huge strides in healthcare and vaccination rates for children in sub Saharan Africa, the odds remain stacked against those who become so ill they fall into a coma. Depending on the cause, between 17% and 45% are expected to die. Many more will be left with disabilities. 'It can become depressing,' says Dr Alice Muiruri-Liomba, who works in Blantyre, Malawi. Researchers have discovered that giving antibiotics as soon as a child arrives at hospital could save tens of thousands of lives a year – and getting them to specialist care quickly could also reduce deaths and long-term disability. Analysis based on multiple studies and published in the Lancet Global Health shows that most of the children who go into a coma have a severe complication of malaria, called cerebral malaria. The second most common identified cause is bacterial meningitis. A second study by the same team, focusing on Queen Elizabeth hospital in Blantyre, found that one in four children hospitalised in a coma with malaria had an additional bacterial infection. 'Too often, malaria parasites found in the blood of a sick African child stop medical staff looking for and treating additional bacterial infections,' says Dr Stephen Ray of the Oxford Vaccine Group, the study's principal investigator. 'You treat the malarial parasites as the cause of the coma, and then actually that becomes a risk factor for dying from a bacterial underlying infection that has been untreated … we need to just make sure everyone that comes in with febrile coma gets antibiotics, as well as antimalarials.' Making that standard practice could change how 2.3 million children a year in Africa are treated and save more than 20,000 lives, Ray says. Data is patchy, but studies and doctors' observations suggest non-traumatic coma is much more common among children in sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Asia, than it is in the global north. 'A child comes in, unfortunately, quite a lot later down the line than they would in a UK setting,' says Ray. That can mean 'at up to a day, or over a day, of full, deep coma. Completely unconscious, unable to communicate, completely disoriented, with a very high fever.' Those symptoms would prompt a UK ambulance 'within minutes'. In Malawi, it can take days. 'That delay is catastrophic – we showed with brain scans, by the time they get to you, they've actually got quite a lot of neurological complications: brain swelling, brain injury,' says Ray. Muiruri-Liomba says transport is a major barrier for many families. 'We have cases where you have a mother carrying a convulsing child on her back the whole night, walking to a health facility. Then they get there, and in this health facility you don't have ambulances … so these mothers are forced to go and source their own transport to a bigger hospital.' Muiruri-Liomba treats children at Queen Elizabeth central hospital – which is relatively well resourced, boasting the country's only portable MRI scanner and fully working research laboratories. District hospitals can be poorly equipped with medicines in short supply and laboratory facilities basic. Children will usually have been first treated at home, then at a clinic and a district hospital before they finally reach Queen Elizabeth, Muiruri-Liomba says. 'We only take patients to the hospital once they complicate – and what that tells me is that they don't understand the danger of what malaria is capable of doing, or what a febrile illness leading to seizures and coma is capable of doing.' Muiruri-Liomba wants to raise awareness of the consequences of delaying care – both in the community and among health professionals and policymakers. 'Those children who present late are likely to have a bad outcome,' she stresses, which could be death or brain damage, probably caused by seizures that have not been managed at an earlier stage. Dr Tarun Dua, who leads the Brain Health Unit at the World Health Organization (WHO), agrees that 'systemic challenges or barriers that we see in access to care and delivery' is a key driver of the problem. 'In many of the countries in Africa, there is only one child neurologist per 4 million population,' she says. 'If you think about where neuroimaging is available, it is in the capital or a couple of cities. There is a big rural/urban divide.' WHO guidelines on meningitis care, updated in April, say children who may have acute meningitis 'need to start empiric antibiotics' even before any diagnostic test. This will, says Dua, include any child presenting at hospital in a coma. 'Our task is, how do we get countries to implement those guidelines?' The WHO is encouraging countries to update their guidance. And Dua is hopeful of technological advances. Low-cost brain scans and better bedside tests are in development. 'Things are moving,' she says. 'But I think accelerated action is important.'
The Guardian
03-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
‘Delay is catastrophic': how instant antibiotics could save thousands of African children in comas
For the hundreds of children who arrive every day at hospitals in parts of Africa unconscious and unresponsive, their survival chances have remained unchanged for nearly 50 years. But new research is raising hopes that swift treatment with antibiotics could improve those chances. Despite huge strides in healthcare and vaccination rates for children in sub Saharan Africa, the odds remain stacked against those who become so ill they fall into a coma. Depending on the cause, between 17% and 45% are expected to die. Many more will be left with disabilities. 'It can become depressing,' says Dr Alice Muiruri-Liomba, who works in Blantyre, Malawi. Researchers have discovered that giving antibiotics as soon as a child arrives at hospital could save tens of thousands of lives a year – and getting them to specialist care quickly could also reduce deaths and long-term disability. Analysis based on multiple studies and published in the Lancet Global Health shows that most of the children who go into a coma have a severe complication of malaria, called cerebral malaria. The second most common identified cause is bacterial meningitis. A second study by the same team, focusing on Queen Elizabeth hospital in Blantyre, found that one in four children hospitalised in a coma with malaria had an additional bacterial infection. 'Too often, malaria parasites found in the blood of a sick African child stop medical staff looking for and treating additional bacterial infections,' says Dr Stephen Ray of the Oxford Vaccine Group, the study's principal investigator. 'You treat the malarial parasites as the cause of the coma, and then actually that becomes a risk factor for dying from a bacterial underlying infection that has been untreated … we need to just make sure everyone that comes in with febrile coma gets antibiotics, as well as antimalarials.' Making that standard practice could change how 2.3 million children a year in Africa are treated and save more than 20,000 lives, Ray says. Data is patchy, but studies and doctors' observations suggest non-traumatic coma is much more common among children in sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Asia, than it is in the global north. 'A child comes in, unfortunately, quite a lot later down the line than they would in a UK setting,' says Ray. That can mean 'at up to a day, or over a day, of full, deep coma. Completely unconscious, unable to communicate, completely disoriented, with a very high fever.' Those symptoms would prompt a UK ambulance 'within minutes'. In Malawi, it can take days. 'That delay is catastrophic – we showed with brain scans, by the time they get to you, they've actually got quite a lot of neurological complications: brain swelling, brain injury,' says Ray. Muiruri-Liomba says transport is a major barrier for many families. 'We have cases where you have a mother carrying a convulsing child on her back the whole night, walking to a health facility. Then they get there, and in this health facility you don't have ambulances … so these mothers are forced to go and source their own transport to a bigger hospital.' Muiruri-Liomba treats children at Queen Elizabeth central hospital – which is relatively well resourced, boasting the country's only portable MRI scanner and fully working research laboratories. District hospitals can be poorly equipped with medicines in short supply and laboratory facilities basic. Children will usually have been first treated at home, then at a clinic and a district hospital before they finally reach Queen Elizabeth, Muiruri-Liomba says. 'We only take patients to the hospital once they complicate – and what that tells me is that they don't understand the danger of what malaria is capable of doing, or what a febrile illness leading to seizures and coma is capable of doing.' Muiruri-Liomba wants to raise awareness of the consequences of delaying care – both in the community and among health professionals and policymakers. 'Those children who present late are likely to have a bad outcome,' she stresses, which could be death or brain damage, probably caused by seizures that have not been managed at an earlier stage. Dr Tarun Dua, who leads the Brain Health Unit at the World Health Organization (WHO), agrees that 'systemic challenges or barriers that we see in access to care and delivery' is a key driver of the problem. 'In many of the countries in Africa, there is only one child neurologist per 4 million population,' she says. 'If you think about where neuroimaging is available, it is in the capital or a couple of cities. There is a big rural/urban divide.' WHO guidelines on meningitis care, updated in April, say children who may have acute meningitis 'need to start empiric antibiotics' even before any diagnostic test. This will, says Dua, include any child presenting at hospital in a coma. 'Our task is, how do we get countries to implement those guidelines?' The WHO is encouraging countries to update their guidance. And Dua is hopeful of technological advances. Low-cost brain scans and better bedside tests are in development. 'Things are moving,' she says. 'But I think accelerated action is important.'
BBC News
28-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Drug driver jailed for killing man as he crossed road
A truck driver who killed an 84-year-old pedestrian as he crossed the road has been jailed for six and a half years. Edward Feelie, who had taken cocaine, failed to stop at a red light while driving his flatbed Isuzu and went on to hit Robert Shirra-Gibb in Blantyre, South Shirra-Gibb did not recover from the collision, which happened just days before Christmas in had previously pleaded guilty to a charge of causing death by dangerous driving. The 54-year-old was sentenced by Lord Arthurson at a hearing in Inverness. The hearing was told that in a background psychological report it emerged Feelie admitted to taking "large quantities" of cocaine, initially at weekends then daily, for the past 10 was also a regular cannabis Arthurson told Feelie that he was guilty of a "shocking crime" and was said to have been "struggling to show empathy" for his judge said: "You took cocaine and then drove your lorry without a second thought for the catastrophic potential consequences of such conduct for other road users."Lord Arthurson also paid tribute to Mr Shirra-Gibb, who was described as "deeply loved".The judge said he would be "profoundly missed" by his family and local jail-term was cut from nine and a half years due to the guilty also of Blantyre, was banned from driving for life. Cocaine use The incident occurred on the town's Glasgow Road at about 18:00 on 19 December Shirra-Gibb made it across the eastbound carriageway but was struck by Feelie's truck when he entered the westbound carriageway.A previous court hearing was told the victim suffered "catastrophic" pelvic, chest and back also had a bleed on the brain and died the next investigators found the red traffic signal that night had been showing for 11 seconds before the Shirra-Gibb had been on the road for around seven seconds.A blood sample was taken from Feelie at a police station after the incident and it was found to contain 67mg of cocaine per litre of blood. The specified limit is 10mg.
