Why are you crying Daddy? Heart-breaking final words of girl, 5, who died of a cardiac arrest

     'Why are you crying Daddy?' were the final words a five-year-old girl said to her distraught father as she died of a cardiac arrest brought on by an illness doctors failed to spot, an inquest has heard.

     Doctors sent Ward Alshammary home with a virus in January this year but two days later she was taken back to hospital after her condition rapidly deteriorated.It was found her irritable rash, sore throat and pain in her lung was actually bronchial pneumonia and doctors were unaware of a major infection between her lungs and chest wall.As they prepared to move her to paediatric intensive care from a high dependency unit, they gave her medication to tackle the bacterial infection but the youngster suffered a cardiac arrest.But just moments before she died, Ward gave her crying father Badr Alshammary a kiss and asked him why he was in tears. Speaking about how their lives had been turned upside down by her death, her father and mother Feraihah said they never thought they wouldn't come home from the hospital without their daughter.

     The couple, who used to live in Southampton, said: 'We were incredibly close to our daughter Ward.'Although she was only five years old, she cared for us, as much as we cared for her.'She loved her siblings and all of her friends at school. Ward loved going to school and she loved her teachers.'When she grew up she wanted to be a pediatrician - she even told the doctor at the hospital that was what she wanted to be.'After that first visit to the hospital, we thought she would be fine. Even when we went back on 21 January 2013, we did not expect to leave the hospital without our daughter.'Ward's death has affected our lives significantly: our family life, our studies, every day, even walking down the street.'We know that nothing can bring Ward back but we hope that knowledge of the circumstances in which Ward died, which we now understand in more detail, can prevent similar deaths in the future.'When she was first admitted, the little girl was examined and given an antihistamine drug before being sent home.And doctors at Southampton General Hospital, in Hampshire, told the family she would be well enough to mix with other children at school.This was despite being severe dehydration and she had not eaten or drunk for two days, Winchester Coroner's Court was told.She died in the early hours of January 22 after being readmitted and concerned staff had called in senior pediatric consultant Dr Peter Wilson.She suffered a cardiac arrest thought to have been brought on by a flood of toxins into her system and having suffered septic shock.