Morgan Kendall claims her one-year-old son Ritchie was lethargic and started vomiting within 30 minutes of playing in a hotel pool in Turkey on the £9,500 family holiday
A mum feared her baby would die when he became ‘lifeless’ minutes after playing in a holiday hotel pool and is now so traumatised by it she’s too scared to take her kids abroad again.
Morgan Kendall claims she saw a video on social media claiming a child had become ‘severely ill’ after playing in the kids’ pool at the Turkish hotel her family were due to stay at. The 25-year-old, who booked the holiday through Jet2, contacted the holiday firm to raise her concerns and request a hotel swap as she says one-year-old son Richie Jarrett is prone to catching illnesses. The nursery nurse claims she was reassured by the holiday firm’s staff that the video was ‘tit for tat’ and it would be ‘fine’ for the family’s £9,500 holiday to go ahead.
Morgan flew out to Antalya, Turkey, with her partner Kurt Jarrett, 31, and two children on July 7 last year but initially kept Richie and seven-year-old Lennie Little away from the children’s pool. She gave in on their fifth day and just 30 minutes after playing in the splash pool, Morgan says Richie became lethargic and started projectile vomiting. After taking ‘lifeless-looking’ Richie to see the hotel doctors twice, he was rushed to hospital in a private ambulance as his ‘eyes rolled back’ and his body went ‘floppy’.
Morgan claims the tot was diagnosed with gastroenteritis and colitis, which can be caused by bacterial infections, says Richie’s condition worsened on the flight home and that worried flight attendants even asked if they should divert the plane as she claims ‘he looked like he was dying’. The mum claims the tot has had seizures for months after the getaway and she’s now too ‘scared and traumatised’ by the experience to book another holiday with her children.
Jet2 say their ‘rigorous’ investigation, which included ‘detailed pool analysis’, found no evidence Ritchie’s illness was caught at the hotel. Morgan, from Leeds, West Yorkshire, said: “I’d seen a viral video about another little girl who had become severely ill [staying at the same hotel]. We were really scared that it was going to happen to our baby because he has quite a weak immune system anyway. He just gets poorly constantly and that’s just the way he is. He can pick anything up and when he does he has really bad reactions to temperatures and stuff like that so I was a bit scared of going [to the hotel] and we’d paid a lot of money as well.
“I rang Jet2 and they said it was ‘tit for tat’ on social media so it would be fine to still go. I asked if we could swap hotels and I was told it wasn’t possible because it was only a month before we were flying. I wasn’t going to let my kids in the pool that they claimed caused the illness, but my seven-year-old wanted to play in it because we kept walking past and there were loads of kids in there. On the fifth day I let him so I went over and sat in the pool with Lennie and took Richie. After 30 minutes I took him [Ritchie] out and that’s when he got really, really poorly. He started projectile vomiting everywhere and was being lethargic.”
Richie was taken in a private ambulance to a nearby hospital, but Morgan claims she had to fork out £2,000 before he was seen by a doctor. He was treated with antibiotics and an IV drip for dehydration before Morgan claims doctors diagnosed him with gastroenteritis and colitis.
Morgan said: “We were really scared and we were really upset. He started getting even worse – he lost all colour in his skin, he was floppy and his eyes were rolling back. He was just in a really bad way. They put him on a drip, but his veins were collapsing because he was so dehydrated and they couldn’t find a vein for his cannula so then they had to go in through his head, which was so traumatic.”
After an overnight stay in hospital, Morgan was desperate to get Richie seen by doctors in the UK. The family of four cut their seven-night stay short by a day and booked an early flight home for July 13th. It was on the plane home that Morgan feared one-year-old Richie was going to die. Morgan said: “On the flight he started feeling unwell again. He lost all colour and he was lifeless. The flight attendant came over and they were really scared because it looked like he was dying.
“He looked so grey and his head was just flopped and she even asked if they should divert the plane – it was that bad. I said no because we’d run out of insurance and we just needed to get him home to a UK hospital. By the time we got him to the hospital, he’d started coming out in rashes. They gave him antibiotics and he started perking up and I brought him home.”
Morgan complained to Jet2 but was unsuccessful in securing a refund and is now ‘scared’ to book another holiday with her children. She added: “I think it was definitely from the pool water because he had seizures for months after catching whatever illness he’d caught in Turkey. He’d never had any before the holiday. Jet2 haven’t taken any responsibility and they emailed back saying that it could have been caused by anything. It was just awful, it was really traumatising. Even now we won’t book another holiday. It scared us, I genuinely thought he was going to die.”
A Jet2 spokesperson said: “We are extremely sorry to hear about this experience. We take matters such as this very seriously and we can confirm that we conducted a rigorous investigation with the hotel at the time, including a detailed pool analysis. The results of this investigation showed that there was no evidence to suggest that the diagnosed illness, which can be picked up from various sources, was contracted at the hotel or at the hotel pool. All of our hotels are regularly audited, and we only work with trusted hotel partners that meet our very high standards, including the hotel in question, which enjoys a very good average rating on Tripadvisor.”
