Brave Ellie wants to go back to school after Camp de Mar accident

EIGHT-YEAR old Ellie Jo Hopkins is hoping to be able to return to school after the Easter holidays but, due to a serious cut suffered to her right foot on a broken bottle while paddling in the sea off the popular beach in Camp de Mar, she has been left on crutches.

The accident happened on Saturday, March 20, Ellie's mother Mandy wrote about it in last Saturday's edition of the Daily Bulletin, but her mother's partner Geoff explained yesterday that if Ellie is allowed to go back to school, she will have to go in a wheelchair.

Geoff said that the whole experience has been very traumatic for the family, but little Ellie in particular.
As Mandy wrote last week, the initial medical treatment given at the Juaneda Clinic, to where Ellie was rushed by ambulance, failed to heal the wound properly and Ellie's medical condition subsequently became complicated and worsened.

However, Geoff does not want to point any fingers at doctors or hospitals. “After having watched her suffer in pain for the next ten days after being stitched up we consulted a children's orthopedic doctor who discovered that the wound had not healed and that the piece of glass had not only cut into the bone, it had sliced a muscle in half, nicked a nerve to the toe and caused a blood clot which was causing the pain. “So, she finally came home with a cast on up to her knee and is not allowed to walk or run the risk of any one knocking her leg for the next four weeks,” Geoff explained.

He said yesterday that Ellie is finally off the antibiotics and the painkillers but is going to have to continue a treatment of iron supplements for the next three months because of the huge amount of blood she lost. “She is still anaemic and, because we have to be so careful about her leg not getting a knock or her suddenly putting any pressure on it, she will have to go back to school in a wheelchair, if the school agrees,” he said. “She seems to be coping OK, she's still laid up at home and will be for another few weeks,” Geoff added. But now that Ellie is on the mend, both Geoff and Mandy are more concerned about the negligible care and attention being given to the extremely popular beach in Camp de Mar.

The family, which has lived in Santa Ponsa for the past six years, are horrified at the thought that unless the council or relevant authorities take some kind of action, this could happen to another child.

Geoff returned to the scene the following day and took a set of pictures of more bottles which had been smashed on the promenade nearby and tossed into the shallow waters near the beach.

If beaches are not going to be cleaned out of season, Mandy and Geoff suggest signs be posted warning parents not to let their children take their shoes off.

As Mandy wrote “dog mess on the beach is bad enough and a health hazard but glass could be life threatening.”