THE “magic” of Christmas is something Matt Ridout can no longer stomach. It’s yet another painful reminder that his beautiful girl Amelia – known to everyone as Millie – is no longer here.
“Millie loved Christmas,” Matt, 36, recalls. “The year before she died, we had all the family there and she had the biggest, best and brightest Christmas.
“She loved her Christmas Eve box and was so excited by it all. I thought she’d never get to sleep.”
As the big day approaches, Matt isn’t busy untangling fairy lights or visiting Santa’s grotto like other parents. Instead, he’s preparing to visit Millie’s grave.
The doting dad, from Dunstable, tells Sun Health: “It’s gut-wrenching not putting out the carrot or the mince pie for Santa.
“We’d always go and get the tree together, and she adored Santa but was always too scared to sit on his lap and would hang onto me.
“Christmas will never be the same now. I’m acutely aware of her absence every single day but the magic of Christmas is made for children and not having her to share it with is always painful.”
Millie was just six years old when she died, on June 16, 2022, when what should have been a routine procedure went tragically wrong.
“I gave her her very first bath, and I gave her last one,” says Matt.
“I was so scared the first time I bathed her because she was so tiny – she was born prematurely, weighing just 2lb 4oz on May 9, 2016.
“That last bath I gave her before I put on her favourite pyjamas will stay with me until I take my last breath.
“She was Millie, but her essence had gone.”
Just hours earlier, Millie had taken her last breath after a biopsy at Addenbrooke’s hospital, Cambridge, to investigate a suspected blood condition.
It should have been a minor surgical procedure, but a doctor mistakenly pierced a blood vessel, causing “massive, catastrophic bleeding internally,” and cardiac arrest.
There was a critical moment where Millie could have been saved, which was missed.
Which is why, while Matt is still trying to live alongside the grief, he’s working tirelessly with the British Society for Haematology to develop ‘Millie’s Method’.
The aim is to iron out inconsistencies in how liquid biopsies are performed, and was prompted by the coroner who investigated Millie’s case, Elizabeth Gray, who said the NHS needed national guidelines to prevent a repeat of this tragedy.
“Millie’s Method will be a permanent reminder to every clinician, every trust and every patient that safety must never be assumed – it has to be guaranteed,” says Matt.
Matt, who is divorced from Millie’s mum, pushed for the biopsy and chose the hospital, too.
“Millie had been unwell for around four months,” he says.
“She’d started developing bruising at the end of February and while we’d taken her to the GP, it felt like they weren’t getting to the bottom of the reason why fast enough.
“She’d bruise on her legs and arms, everywhere really, even though she wouldn’t knock against anything.
I honestly think the only thing Millie hated in life was needles
“She was sent to the hospital for bloods but it didn’t yield a definitive diagnosis.”
Millie had suspected pancytopenia, a condition where there’s a significant drop in the three main types of blood cells – red, white and platelets – causing anaemia, bleeding issues and a greater risk of infection.
A bone marrow aspiration biopsy, used to diagnose anemia, leukaemia, cancers, infections, or other blood disorders, would confirm the condition that is treated with blood transfusions and medication.
“I honestly think the only thing Millie hated in life was needles,” Matt says.
“She had so much love in her heart for everything else. There was no such thing as boredom with Millie either. She’d notice the small things and appreciate everything.
“She loved the outdoors and we’d spend hours finding animals in the clouds – turtles, unicorns, dragons.
“She’d giggle at how the wind felt on her cheeks when I’d push her on the swing. She embraced life so much.
‘Struggling to keep her alive’
“If there was a child poorly at nursery, she’d sit with them and hold their hand. She’d always tell me; ‘Daddy, people need more love.’
“If someone was sad or even mean to her at nursery she’d tell me it was because they needed more love. She forgave everything and loved so very much.”
Matt’s memories of the minutes before the procedure are harrowing to recall.
“She kept telling me the doctors were going to chop her up into pieces and that she wouldn’t come out of hospital,” he says.
“She was wriggling and screaming. She always loved it when I sang to her so I was singing all her favourite songs from films like Sing and Moana and some Ed Sheeran ones, but she was really upset.
“I remember her looking at me and she looked petrified. It was like she was looking through me, it was a piercing look.”
While it only took seconds for the anaesthetic to work, Matt was ushered out of the room. Feeling uneasy, he sat as close as he could.
“I didn’t kiss her before she went in,” says Matt, sadly.
I was given a second with her where I kissed her head and whispered ‘I love you, Millie’. The rest is a blur
“She was in good hands, I trusted the doctors, but I was worried about how she’d be, so I sat near a door adjacent to where she was.
“Ten minutes later, there was movement when two nurses came out and then went back in with plastic intravenous fluid bags.
“Then a trolley came down the corridor with a resuscitation machine on it.
“It felt like hours, but it must have all happened very quickly. After everyone went into the room, someone came out and ushered me into a side room.
“They told me Millie had passed away, but they’d resuscitated her four times so far and they were struggling to keep her alive.
“I remember them saying ‘we’re doing everything we can…’, but that she wasn’t stable enough to take up to theatre.
“I remember asking if I could see her to give her a kiss. I said she needed to know she was loved before she went up to theatre.
“I was given a second with her where I kissed her head and whispered ‘I love you, Millie’. “The rest is a blur.”
Matt signed several forms he was given and took himself outside the hospital, taking his shoes and socks off and touching the ground, though he has no idea why.
“Millie loved nature and the grass and it felt like some kind of connection being barefoot,” he says.
“It felt like the world was ending and I didn’t know what to do, so I started walking.”
It was on Cambridge High Street, Matt saw Millie running towards him.
“When I kissed her, I’d told her she’d be with my grandmother,” he says. “She had died in 2011 and when Millie was born, I’d prayed and asked her to be Millie’s guardian angel.
“I was walking down the high street at 1.44pm when I saw my grandmother with her arm around Millie.
“She ran towards me and said, ‘It’s OK, Daddy,’ before she ran off again. I felt a chill right through me and seconds later my phone rang.”
I didn’t see the point in carrying on. She was my purpose, she was my happiness
It was the consultant, telling Matt the surgery hadn’t gone to plan and that he needed to get back to the hospital.
“I remember saying, ‘It’s ok, she’s told me. I’m on my way back.’ Even in death, Millie found a way to soften the blow.”
While it took a few hours for Matt to be able to see Millie, when he did, he was able to bathe his beautiful daughter for the very last time.
“She looked like Millie but she was so cold to touch, her colour wasn’t there and neither was her essence. I put her favourite pyjamas on and held her for the last time.”
In the following weeks, Matt was catatonic while a stream of visitors and friends offered support.
“I felt nothing,” he says. “I lived for Millie and she was gone.
“I didn’t see the point in carrying on. She was my purpose, she was my happiness.
“All I could think about was being with her. I bought the plot next to her grave. I could barely function. The grief was so intense.”
While an investigation into what happened started instantly, it took until February this year for an inquest and Prevention of Future Deaths report into the case.
The doctor sought to take fluid and samples of bone marrow from Millie’s hip bones.
He accidentally penetrated through the pelvic bone with the needle and pierced the iliac blood vessels.
But when he noticed a spurt of blood, he was told by a consultant there were no signs to raise concern and to complete the biopsy.
Shortly afterwards, Millie’s pulse was lost, and medics tried to save her life but the bleeding could not be stopped.
Attending the inquest, Matt was able to address the doctor who made the fatal incision responsible for Millie’s death.
‘I was numb’
“I looked at him and told him I forgave him,” says Matt.
“Millie wouldn’t want me to be angry. She forgave everyone for everything so I forgave him for Millie.”
Millie’s death was deemed an ‘accident’ – a ‘rare but known complication’ of the bone marrow procedure.
The BSH has confirmed that next summer it will develop a universal set of guidelines to bring the practises around bone marrow biopsies in line with today’s standards.
While experts are gathering data, they are looking at enhancing training for staff, introducing a competency test and for the first time, a registry of complications – so that when, for example, there’s a spurt of blood as there was in Millie’s case, doctors are better informed.
The goal is for ‘Millie’s Method’ to be rolled out nationwide by 2027.
Matt says: “Millie was my daughter but now her name will stand for change. Millie helped everyone and Millie’s Method will do that in her absence.
“I’m not sure she’d understand the gravitas of it all but I know if I explained to her that something had been developed in her name that’d help other people she’d shout ‘yay’ and give me a huge hug and give me her big infectious smile. She only ever wanted to help people.
“The pain I have from losing Millie will never ever leave me. I struggle every single day. As much as it hurts hearing her name and knowing Millie’s Method would probably have saved her is agony.
I always go and see her on Christmas Day, but it’ll never have the same feeling of fun and excitement it did when Millie was alive
“But knowing it could save another Millie is a legacy she’d be so very proud of.”
In the wake of his daughter’s death, Matt was left to navigate a world that felt “pointless”.
He says: “The first Christmas without her I spent at my parents’ house and couldn’t take part in anything.
“I was numb. I felt lost and angry. It felt like there was no point to Christmas because I didn’t feel I’d ever be happy again.
“I go through the motions now.
“I always make a donation to the neonatal unit of the hospital she was born at in her memory at this time of year.
“I always go and see her on Christmas Day, but it’ll never have the same feeling of fun and excitement it did when Millie was alive.”
