On Friday it will be Harper Moss’ first birthday and her family plans to throw her a little party at home in the garden to celebrate.
There will be balloons, cake and presents, but the event will be tainted with sadness, because it will also be exactly a year since her dad, Thomas Gibson, 40, passed away.
On 7 June 2023, just a few hours before Rebecca Moss was scheduled to give birth to Harper via elective caesarean, she came downstairs to find her partner of seven years lying dead on the sofa.
Sitting in her home in Manchester - which is filled with photographs of Tom and toys for their daughter - doting mum Rebecca tears up as she recalls the day that changed her life forever.
“I woke up about 5.15 am and had a wash. I went downstairs to let the dog out. Tom was asleep on the couch. I went over to him saying ‘Wake up, it’s baby day’. He didn’t respond,” says PR Director Rebecca, 37. “So I went over to the couch to give him a kiss.”
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Rebecca and her partner Thomas Gibson (Andy Stenning/Daily Mirror)That’s when Rebecca realised he wasn’t breathing and rang 999. And despite her best efforts to give Tom CPR, she could do nothing. He had suffered a cardiac death just hours before his daughter Harper - his first and only child - was born.
This tragedy would soon be compounded by the fact that his death could have been prevented. Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust has since admitted that it gave negligent medical care to Tom.
And yesterday, following a two-day inquest hearing at Stockport Coroner’s Court, Coroner Christopher Morris, concluded that Tom died as a consequence of sudden cardiac death due to myocardial fibrosis.
The inquest heard that, had his heart defect not been missed on a hospital scan, he may have lived.
Thomas died the same day their baby was born (COLLECT)
He died as a result of negligent medical care (PA)Referring to Rebecca’s ordeal, when she tried to rouse him as she prepared to go to hospital to give birth, the coroner said: “I can’t even begin to fathom what that must have been like for her, particularly in the context of what should have been the happiest day for both of them.”
He added that, had the clinical team appreciated that the ECG showed Tom had complete heart block, he could have had a pacemaker fitted, adding: “It is likely these measures would have avoided his death.”
Rebecca added: “Medics admitted over the last two days of the inquest that he should have received treatment and a pacemaker. The expertise which could have saved Tom’s life was just one phone call away.“
On 18 May 2023, three weeks before he died, Tom developed an upset stomach after eating a dodgy sandwich while at work at a timber yard. But his condition worsened and he told Rebecca he’d ordered a breakfast sandwich from a cafe and had it delivered.
Rebecca and Harper now (Andy Stenning/Daily Mirror)When it took three hours to arrive, he still tucked in, regardless of how long the food had been hanging around.
“I was surprised he’d eaten the sandwich but didn’t take much notice of this,” Rebecca told The Mirror. “Then, that night, Tom had diarrhoea and felt generally unwell.”
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Although his GP - Delamere Medical Centre in Stretford - failed to see Thomas in person when he rang a few days later, he was told to drink Dioralyte, a diarrhoea treatment, for his symptoms and submitted a stool sample.
But he did not hear back, his condition only deteriorated and nine days after developing symptoms he contacted 111 and was told to go to Wythenshawe Hospital A&E
Thomas had suffered a total blockage to his heart (COLLECT)“Tom was dyslexic and sometimes had trouble articulating himself, so I wrote down a list of symptoms for him to take with him,” says Rebecca. He also took photographs of the blood in his stool to show doctors, who finally located his sample and diagnosed him with a campylobacter infection, which can cause diarrhoea.
While in A&E, Thomas was given an electrocardiogram (ECG) test which displayed abnormal results – identifying a complete heart block. Also known as a third-degree heart block, it is the most serious type that can lead to sudden cardiac death, which is what happened to Tom. But the abnormality on the ECG was reviewed by two doctors in the A&E department, who missed it.
“The ECG wasn’t viewed by a cardiologist or a specialist while he was there,” says Rebecca. “Wythenshawe Hospital touts itself as one the biggest cardiology units in the UK, but they couldn’t even get a cardiologist to come and look to see if something was wrong.”
Thomas was discharged after 12 hours for follow-up care by his GP. But Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust has since told the family he should have been admitted as an inpatient to cardiology and fitted with a pacemaker device, which would most likely have saved his life.
Instead, back home, he became steadily sicker. After calling the GP on June 6. he was finally given a face-to-face appointment - 19 days after he first developed symptoms.
“By this point Tom had contacted the GP on four occasions, had called 111 and had been to A&E and was still not being taken seriously. We were desperate and I didn’t know what else I could do to help,” says Rebecca.
“I went with Tom to this appointment. Again, I wrote down a list of his symptoms, so that Tom could hand this to the GP. I wanted to make sure we got everything out of this appointment, so there could be complete clarity about how Tom was feeling and his symptoms.”
According to Rebecca, the GP seemed more concerned about his campylobacter infection being reported to environmental health than she was about his symptoms and neither took his blood pressure nor his temperature.
She said: “Tom was given antibiotics and the GP said he should start to feel better after two doses. That evening, Tom still didn’t feel well, so we decided that he wouldn’t come with me to the caesarean section, which we were both disappointed about.
“Tom was feeling so poorly that he decided that he was going to miss the birth of his first child.”
He decided to sleep downstairs, to avoid passing any infection on to Rebecca, whose mum was going to take her to Wythenshawe Hospital - the same hospital that had sent him home.
In the morning, she found Tom lying dead.
“Harper and I are getting used to life as just the two of us,” she says. “I never thought I’d have to live my life without Tom, I was looking forward to all the memories we were going to make together with Harper.
“I could never have predicted that a fit and healthy man would pass away so suddenly and unexpectedly - and it’s even worse now we know it could have been prevented had he been given the care he deserved.”
In the delivery room Rebecca - who was represented by Charlotte Moore of CL Medilaw - although traumatised at just having lost the love of her life, had to focus on the arrival of their child.
“I just felt numb and not really ‘in the room’, but I was adamant I wanted Harper here safely, despite what had happened to Tom. She was my priority at that moment in time,” she says. “Once she was born, I was so relieved. It turned the most awful day in my life into the best day of my life.
“I do reflect back on that morning and worry that something bad could have happened to Harper while I was trying to do CPR - it doesn’t bear thinking about.”
Rebecca sees Tom, who she met on a date set up by friends in 2016, every day in Harper.
She says: “She looks so much like him in her eyes and her smile. I hope she will inherit his kindness too. While Tom isn’t here physically his legacy lives on through Harper and we will make sure she knows who he was and what a wonderful man her dad was.
“It’s important to me that Tom’s story is shared, because he deserved to be treated better than he was. He was let down by the very people who were supposed to care for him. He deserved better and I want everyone to know it. I am told that inquests aren’t about blame, but I have every right to be angry and to seek answers for Tom, Harper and our family.”
The coroner will be writing a prevention of future deaths report, addressed to the chief executive of the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and the National Institute of Clinical Excellence concerning clinical practice around the interpretation of ECG scans.
Toli Onon, joint group chief medical officer at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, said: "We wish again to extend our condolences and sincere sympathies to Mr Gibson's family at this very difficult time.
"The Trust has undertaken a thorough investigation to examine the circumstances following Mr Gibson's very sad death, and we apologise for where our care has fallen short of the high standards to which we aspire.
"We are committed to providing the best care possible for our patients and we will be reviewing the Coroner's conclusion carefully, to ensure further learning for the Trust is addressed and applied to our constant work to improve our patients' safety, quality of care, and experience."
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