A five‑year-old girl from Cornwall died in hospital four days after having her tonsils removed. The child, identified as five-year-old from St Just in Roseland, underwent the procedure at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro on April 5 2023 because she suffered from sleep apnoea, The Guardian reports. Her parents had expected she would remain overnight because of a rare condition, but she was sent home just hours after the operation.
The girl began vomiting in the early hours of 6 April and was admitted again to hospital that same evening. She was later pronounced dead at 4:37AM on April 9 after doctors discovered she had suffered a massive haemorrhage apparently caused by a surgical-site infection leading to fatal bleeding. The inquest into her death opened on November 27 2025 at Cornwall Coroner's Court.
What parents told the inquest
In a portrait read at the hearing, the girl’s parents described their daughter as “the happiest little girl” who faced medical treatment bravely. They said: “Amber was and always will be our magical little princess. She lit up our home with her singing, her dancing, her laughter and her heart of gold.”
Her mother explained that she had repeatedly told hospital staff their daughter would need to stay in hospital after the procedure because of her cyclical vomiting syndrome. That condition caused her to violently vomit and retch for hours at a time. The surgery took place at around noon on April 5 and she was discharged around 9PM, which surprised her parents.
After the discharge, vomiting began in the early hours of April 6. The family contacted the hospital and were told to “wait and see” and to call back if symptoms continued. The next day the vomiting escalated to about 20 episodes. The parents brought her back to hospital at 10PM.
She received intravenous medication to stop vomiting and by around 2AM on April 7 was also diagnosed with a chest infection. Later that day her intravenous line failed. Her parents said she could not take oral medication because she was too ill.
Intravenous medication was not restarted until 2:45OM on April 8, meaning she had gone 14 hours without fluids, pain relief, antibiotics or anti‑sickness medication. She fell asleep but awoke around 3AM and suffered a haemorrhage. Doctors were unable to resuscitate her.
What doctors told the court
Dr Andrew Bamber, a consultant in paediatric and perinatal pathology, concluded that the cause of death was a massive haemorrhage with aspiration of blood, combined with a surgical‑site infection and enlarged tonsils. He said damage to a blood vessel in her throat was likely caused by infection after the surgery rather than by the surgery itself.
The surgeon responsible for the operation, Kel Anyanwu, said the procedure — which lasted 38 minutes — was quiet in terms of blood loss, and that there had been no active signs of infection at the time. He testified that he had never previously seen a death result from a tonsillectomy, and that the consent form signed by the parents did not mention the risk of death, calling her case “unique.” When asked about discharging her the same night, he said: “The assumption was that if she was fine, she will probably be ok. The decision was made later when we saw her, that she is fine, she can go.”
The inquest continues as the court examines whether standard post‑operative procedures were followed and whether more should have been done to protect the child.