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Mum whose daughter caught vomiting bug: 'We won't set foot in the sea again'

Holidaymaker Alice Clarke says what should have been a happy seaside break turned into a nightmare after her daughter was struck down with illness she believes came from dirty seawater

[Alice Clarke with daughter Willow - hours later the seven year old was in agony ]

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Alice Clarke with daughter Willow - hours later the seven year old was in agony

A mum says her seven year old daughter now refuses to even paddle the sea after being struck down with a parasite while on a family holiday in Cornwall last summer.

Little Willow Clarke says she feared she would die after enduring 12 days of agony. During that time she was vomiting every couple of hours, lost a lot of weight and at times was delirious.

Willow was eventually diagnosed as having caught cryptosporidium, a bug found in human and animal poo that can contaminate waterways, swimming pools, raw milk and fresh produce. Mum Alice believes Willow contracted it after being in the sea that day.

The severity of the illness meant Willow having to miss being a bridesmaid at her aunts wedding, something she had hugely been looking forward to.

Their experience come amid heightened attention of what campaigners say are the heath risks of swimming in the seas because of the dumping of raw sewage by water companies.

[Alice Clarke believes daughter Willow caught nasty vomiting bug after spending just 20 minutes in the sea ]

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Alice Clarke believes daughter Willow caught nasty vomiting bug after spending just 20 minutes in the sea

Channel 4 docu-drama Dirty Business featuring the heart-wrenching story of eight-year old Heather Preen, who two weeks after contracting e.coli along with many others during a trip to a Devon beach in 1999. Her family feel certain Heathers death was the result of her coming into contact with raw sewage. South West Water has always denied culpability.

Alice Clarke, her sister, and Willow - who was six at the time - visited Carlyon Bay, near St Austell, in Cornwall on August 19 last year.

Alice, who was self-employed cleaner and is now a special needs teaching assistant, said: We probably werent in the sea for more than 20 minutes. In that time she didnt swallow any of the water. It was very strange that she contracted it, says Alice, who thinks the only way the bacteria got into Willows system was because she ate someone after being in the sea, adding: The bacteria may have been on hands. Within two or three hours of being in the water she was really, really tired. She just wanted to go to bed. Considering we were on holiday, that wasnt like her. And we had only just arrived that day. All through that night she had a really high temperature. She was sweating all night.

[Alice Clarke and daughter Willow had been looking forward to a seaside break together ]

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Alice Clarke and daughter Willow had been looking forward to a seaside break together

By 10.30am the next morning, Willow had begun vomiting, and Alice made the decision to rush home, more than 80 miles away in Silverton, Devon, a journey that took two hours. She recalls: From then on she was vomiting every one to two hours, through the night as well, for pretty much 12 days straight. There were only a couple of breaks in between. It was awful, traumatising. She was so dehydrated as well.

Alice says that, after around five days, she took Willow to a walk-in client but was advised to simply go home and lie down. A few days later, and with no improvement, she took Willow to her local doctor who suspected it was cryptosporidium, and later confirmed. Fortunately Willow began to improve on day 12, otherwise Willow would have had to be hospitalised.

While she was going through it, she was so tired, I dont think she understood the severity of it. It was after she started gaining her energy that she said, I was really scared because I didnt know if this was ever going to end, and I was scared I might have actually died.

While Willow has recovered physically, the mental scars remain. She will go onto the sand but wont go near the sea, she wont even paddle, says Alice. And Im not allowed to do that either. She is very scared because of her experience. Neither of us will set foot in the sea again, and we used to go in a lot. Even me talking about it, she gets upset. This will stay with her forever.

Alice is convinced being in the sea was how Willow became ill: There is no other possible way she could have got it. There is no other explanation. We were in a campervan and we took bottled water away with us.

Having to take so much time off work to care for Willow also took its toll: As a self-employed single parent, I couldnt work for three weeks which caused real financial strain. No family should go through this.

South West Water said: We are sorry to hear that someone has been unwell however, we do not have a storm overflow on Carlyon Bay.

There is still the possibility the parasite was in the water from elsewhere. The UK Health Security Agency said there was evidence suggesting cryptosporidium can survive for at least 12 weeks in seawater. It pointed that this based on studies using artificial seawater.

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