‘Healthy’ man, 20, died 48 hours after telling his mum he ‘felt rubbish and had sore legs’ after night out

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A HEALTHY and “full of life” 20-year-old man died after waking up and telling his mum he “felt rubbish” and had sore legs.

Mackenzie Allan Scott Lowe, of Paisley, Glasgow had been enjoying a night out with friends before a sudden illness took hold.

Mackenzie Allan Scott Lowe died aged 20, in January

Mackenzie’s mum, Lisa Elmes, says her son had complained of sore legs before rapidly going downhill

The keen poker player died in January of meningococcal septicemia (meningitis and sepsis), the signs of which can be hard to identify.

Mum Lisa Elmes, 42, a senior care worker, says she wishes she’d taken her only son to hospital sooner – though his symptoms did not ring alarm bells at the time.

She and her husband of eight years, Paul, say they hope their loss reminds people that life-threatening meningitis can affect anyone.

Stepdad Paul, 43, an aerospace engineer, says: “It’s something you see on telly, or hear about it happening to other people. 

“You don’t expect it to happen to someone you know and at that age.

“I always associated meningitis with babies, and rolling the glass over the rash.

“But it isn’t just for babies, it’s everybody. If you have a temperature and are feeling unwell, maybe don’t make the mistakes we made and just assume. Get yourself checked out.

“There were no signs, there was nothing, other than he felt a bit ‘crappy’. We just assumed he had a wee bug.”

The morning of January 27 was completely normal, as Lisa went to wake her only son for his Saturday shift at McDonald’s.

But Mackenzie, who “wasn’t one to complain”, had to come home early feeling unwell.

Lisa tells The Sun: “He’d been out with his friends on the Friday night for a birthday and was back by midnight because he had work early the next day.

“I told him I’d get him up from work – he was a typical teenager and found it hard to get up. 

“When I did, he said, ‘I’m not feeling great mum, my legs are really sore’. He said it was probably because he had gone to the gym, and he stands all day at work.

“I said grab some painkillers – so that’s what he did.

“He phoned me about 12 o’clock saying, ‘Mum, I feel terrible’. He was in the toilets being sick at this point.”

Fast deterioration

Paul went to pick Mackenzie up and says: “It was just me and him in the car, and I said, ‘Mackenzie if you did anything last night, now is the time to tell me, before we go into your mum’. He said he’d had a couple of drinks and that was it.”

At the home the three of them lived at, Lisa found Mackenzie had a temperature and gave him some painkillers.

She turned a fan on in his room, though recalls Mackenzie saying he was cold.

The couple left the house around 2pm and at 6pm, Lisa went back to their home to check on Mackenzie, who was in bed texting friends and was “talking away”. 

But he told his mum he felt “rubbish” as she encouraged him to keep sipping water.

“I just wish I took him to hospital then,” she recalls.

Lisa went back out but when they returned home at 9pm, Mackenzie had significantly deteriorated.

She says: “I found my son on the stairs naked and he was trying to get his temperature down. He was still with it, but sort of delirious.

“I called an ambulance straight away and told him, ‘Mum is here, so is Paul’.

“The paramedics asked for his birthday and he wasn’t able to give the year he was born. It went downhill from there.”

At the hospital, Mackenzie was taken straight into resus and then sedated in ICU because he was so unwell. 

The family – Lisa, her mum and sister, Paul, and Mackenzie’s dad – waited while Mackenzie had brain scans that night.

The keen poker player had bacterial meningitis, which is fatal in one in ten cases

And on Sunday morning, they were told Mackenzie had bacterial meningitis and that there was either fluid or blood on his brain. 

Meningitis, an infection of the protective membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord, is extremely serious.

The symptoms of meningitis include a high temperature, being sick, headache, a stiff neck, drowsiness and a dislike of bright lights. It also causes a rash which does not fade when a glass is rolled over it, but this does not always develop.

Lisa said: “He had no rash.”

Septicaemia can occur with meningitis – which doctors had already diagnosed Mackenzie with on arrival.

The symptoms include limb or muscle pain, cold hands and feet or shivering and confusion.

It is caused by the same germs as meningitis. When the bacteria enters the bloodstream and multiplies, it causes blood poisoning, which leads to the life-threatening sepsis.

Sepsis is an overwhelming and life-threatening response to infection that can lead to tissue damage, organ failure and death.

Lisa recalled: “He was hooked up to all the different machines – a ventilator, dialysis, which wasn’t working, with plasma and platelets going in.

“His organs already started failing by Sunday morning. His blood pressure was very low and he was bleeding internally.

“The doctors wanted to take him for another scan, but he wasn’t stable enough.

“Eventually it was a necessity, and that’s when they found he had a catastrophic brain haemorrhage.

“He was brain dead by the Monday morning.”

Overflow at funeral

Mackenzie, who has two half-siblings and two stepsiblings, was surrounded by family and friends, who Lisa had called on the Sunday. All had to take antibiotics as a precaution against catching meningitis.

Doctors who had done everything they could told Mackenzie’s family it would be best to turn life support off, which they did on the evening of Monday, January 29.

Lisa says: “He just wasn’t responding when they shined the light in his eyes.

“I felt like I was in a bubble and it wasn’t real. It’s like when you are watching a TV programme. I just thought, ‘This is not happening to me’. But it was, it was happening.”

Overall, it’s estimated up to one in every 10 cases of bacterial meningitis is fatal.

Vaccinations – which Mackenzie was up to date with – can protect against some types of meningitis, with viral meningitis being the most common form and bacterial meningitis the rarer.

Lisa says: “We really don’t know where he picked the meningitis up from. He was always around his friends, at work, the gym.

“He suffers with tonsillitis a couple of times a year. So I thought perhaps he had a sore throat and didn’t mention it to me and he doesn’t always go to the doctors – trying to is impossible.

“That’s all he really suffered with – I’m wondering if that triggered it, or something else did… We just don’t know.”

Around one in 10 people have the bacteria that causes meningococcal disease – Neisseria meningitidis – at the back of their throat without having symptoms or being unwell. 

Carriers can pass it on to others by close contact, such as sneezing, coughing or kissing.

Mackenzie’s funeral was attended by some 400 people or more, as Lisa recalled: “We couldn’t even get in there were so many cars.”

Now coping with their tragic loss together, Lisa and Paul reflect on the events that happened as they try and find answers.

Lisa says: “I just wish when I went to check him at 6pm I’d taken him to hospital then. 

“The doctors said it wouldn’t have changed the outcome, because he was the most unwell person in the hospital that weekend.

“He was just a nice young man, you couldn’t get a nicer person. He’d brighten up your day if you were feeling sad. He always said ‘love you’ when he hung up the phone, he was just a loveable person.

“He always helped people – if he picked me up late from work, he’d drop off all the girls as well.

“It’s so quiet in the house. Your brain keeps hearing him banging down the stairs or coming in the door. His room was always a mess.”

Paul adds: “His room is the way he left it, just like he’d gone to work. You’ll step into his room and say, ‘You wee bugger’. But he’s not coming back.

“Mackenzie never said goodbye to us when he left the house. He said ‘See you later’. So at the service, we said this isn’t goodbye, it’s see you later.”

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