
“There is one thing parents can do to stop these deaths. ”
“Giardia” the doctor told Andrea Shoesmith when she first took her sick four-year old to the doctor.
“She’ll be fine.”
He sent them on their way and went on with his busy workload.
The little girl had been complaining of abdominal pain and loose black bowel motions, she was still playing with her older brother Finn but Andrea just knew something wasn’t right.
The GP later told an inquest that he just did what many doctors do… “take an educated guess.”
Two weeks later his “educated guess” would prove horrifyingly misguided as four-year old Summer would be dead.

The night before she died Summer’s brother Finn, aged seven, alerted his mother to his little sister’s distress. He woke Andrea in the middle of the night telling her “Summer has a bleeding nose.”
When she checked on her the little four-year old, her big brother’s best mate and described by her mother as a “tomboy,” vomited dark red blood.
Her mother called Triple-O and Summer was rushed to hospital but after 15 minutes the Emergency Department at Noosa Hospital sent them on their way with the attending doctor saying Summer had just swallowed blood from a bloody nose and then vomited.