NEWS: DVT killer

By Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
August 13, 2008

A MOTHER-OF-THREE has collapsed and died suddenly after complaining of sore legs for months.

Paramedics and doctors fought to save Sheena Booth, 37, after being called to her Gorebridge home by her 15-year-old daughter Leah. The single mum was later found to have died from an undiagnosed deep vein thrombosis blood clot.

Today, as her family paid tribute to the "devoted" mother, her brother Scot told how he would "learn to be a dad" to his sister's children.

Ms Booth died last Wednesday after collapsing in the bathroom of her home in Burnside Road.

She had cried out to her daughter for help and two teams of paramedics were soon on the scene. When they arrived she was not breathing and while they were able to partially resuscitate her in the ambulance on the way to hospital, they were unable to save her life.

Her father Ted, 59, said today: "She would do anything for anybody. I keep getting images of her as a little girl aged about seven riding on my back - playing horsey with her dad.

"Now she's gone and we've been left with nothing. No parent should have to bury their child. It should be the other way around."

In the months leading up to her death, Ms Booth complained of pains in her legs and had trouble walking. She had recently taken on a walking stick and suspected a sciatic nerve, but doctors failed to find any problems.

In the final weeks before she died, she was also complaining of breathing problems, which doctors put down to asthma and prescribed steroids which failed to alleviate the symptoms.

Before she could make a repeat appointment she was killed by a pulmonary embolism caused by a deep vein thrombosis blood clot entering her lung. It is unknown whether any of the previous symptoms were related to the DVT.

Ms Booth was born in Singapore while her father was serving as a marine engineer in the Royal Navy. He left the Navy in 1980 and settled in Gorebridge, enrolling her and Scot in Gorebridge Primary and later Greenhall High.

In her final year of high school, Ms Booth moved to England to be with her mother Sylvia, by now separated from her father, in Plymouth.

She returned to Gorebridge shortly after her first two children Nicola, 16, and Leah were born to be close to her father and his second wife Sandra, now 54.

Nicola has now returned to Plymouth to be with her grandmother and study to be mechanical engineer like her grandad.

The care of Leah and Ms Booth's youngest child Connor, seven, has been entrusted to their uncle Scot, 38, who also lives in Gorebridge and who will now apply for legal guardianship.

He said: "I'm going to have to learn to be a dad. I've had a lot of help so far from my friends at the Full Gospel Church in Dalkeith, who have been cooking meals for me and the kids over the last week.

"I'll also have the support of all of the members of my family to help me through."

Ms Booth's best friend, Bruce Burnett, 52, was also struggling to come to terms with her death. He said: "I just feel an emptiness, a void. I just can't believe she's gone."

Ms Booth will be buried at Harvieston Cemetery, near Gorebridge, tomorrow at 11am.

DVT kills around 200 people under 40 in the UK every year.