Despite losing all four limbs due to a Strep A infection, a brave Irish girl is still smiling.
Sophie Lanigan, from Blanchardstown in Dublin, Ireland, was taken to the doctor in December 2022 after developing a fever.
She started having trouble breathing, so the 12-year-old was rushed to the hospital with suspected pneumonia. She was then admitted to the intensive care unit and placed on a ventilator.
Her family braced themselves for the worst after doctors informed them that she had sepsis caused by Strep A.
Sophie had to be transferred to another hospital after going into septic shock and her organs began to fail.
She spent the next two weeks fighting for her life there. On Christmas Day 2022, she was finally taken off the ventilator.
The little girl awoke to the devastating news that the disease’s damage to her hands and feet was irreversible, and she had to undergo quadruple amputation.
Sophie was finally able to return home to her family last week after months in the hospital and numerous setbacks, according to British tabloid reports.
Alongside her parents Laura Hughes and Keith Lanigan, she is now facing a very difficult childhood but new pictures shared by her aunt Christina Canavan show the sixth-grade pupil is ‘still smiling’.
‘She is waiting on a bed in (The National Rehabilitation Hospital) Dun Laoghaire,’ Canavan said to Dublin live.
‘The aim is to get Sophie as mobile as possible for being at home. Renovations will be needed to the house.’
A go-fund me page set up for her has reportedly gotten more than €132,000.
A statement on the page said: ‘Sophie is the most amazing, strong, determined girl and she battled through again.
‘She is our hero and we are all so unbelievably proud.’
The response from members of the public has so far been amazing, and more than €132,000 have been donated.