Blog

A £50,000 reward is being offered to anyone with information on the whereabouts of the body of a mother who went missing in 2019.

Hadir Al Enezi, originally from Kuwait, arrived in the UK with her daughter on 7 November 2018, seeking refuge.

She found support from relatives living in Rusholme, according to Greater Manchester Police (GMP).

After she was reported as missing, detectives started an investigation in 2019.

GMP’s Major Incident Team is currently operating under the assumption she was a victim of deliberate harm, following a targeted attack, likely due to her association with the Bidoon Arab minority.

Detective Chief Inspector Liz Hopkinson, who leads GMP’s Major Incident Team, said: ‘Our plea to locate Hadir Al Enezi is being renewed. It’s crucial that we uncover the truth surrounding her disappearance.

‘Throughout our relentless investigative efforts, we’ve been unable to establish any evidence supporting Hadir’s continued existence.

‘Regrettably, our approach is to proceed with the assumption that she has suffered severe harm and is no longer alive.

‘Our paramount objective is to provide answers for Hadir’s young daughter. We implore anyone who possesses information about her location to come forward to the police. By doing so, we can provide the much-needed answers to her daughter.’

READ ALSO: Mum abducts kids and goes missing ‘off-grid’ in wilderness with boyfriend and her dad

‘The search for Hadir’s remains persists. If you possess any relevant information, we urge you to urgently share it with GMP.

‘This information could hold the key to delivering closure for her daughter.’

DCI Hopkinson emphasised that the investigation is ongoing, adding that such cases remain open and unresolved.

To facilitate potential leads, a Major Incident Public Portal has been set up so members of the public can provide information, images, or video footage that could contribute to the ongoing enquiries.

Police officials said that the 35-year-old woman, Kellie, brought the toddler to the hospital. The 2-year-old boy was reportedly blue and lifeless, with several bruises across his body, the doctors told investigators.

Per reports, Kellie told the doctors that the bruises were self-injuries that the baby caused by throwing himself around. But what doctors found inconsistent with Kellie’s story was that the child’s body was at a core temperature of 82 degrees when the nurse brought him to the hospital, indicating that for about 40 minutes, the toddler had been dead.

According to Kellie’s story, she was giving the child a bath that day before she had to bring him to the hospital. And during the bath he “threw himself several times from the bath to the toilet” and it may have caused him to have a seizure in the bathtub.

But her husband, Kyle, told investigators that the child doesn’t usually throw himself around like that. Doctors found that the child’s injuries also didn’t match the nurse’s story, noting that he a number of bruises on his back and side, a cut on the inside of his lip as well as his genitals, a small bump on his head, and several marks on his face.

According to the autopsy report, Henry was deemed to have passed away from asphyxiation due to blunt-force trauma and the manner of death was listed as a homicide, as per court documents. Initially, little Henry was fostered by his loving grandmother, Kayla, who thoroughly enjoyed looking after him knew her age would stop her from being a full-time carer for him. Kellie, who also had a daughter, pleasantly surprised the family when she offered to adopt Henry. It’s been a year since she started taking care of Henry and the adoption was planned for later this year. “Kellie stated it was a sign from God, as they wanted to have another child and had they had a boy, they were going to name him Henry,” a spokesperson for the family said. The family was excited about this. Henry would be with family and we would all get to be a part of his life and watch him grow. The situation was perfect.”

In their joy to see Henry grow up with someone they knew, the family missed any possible signs of the toddler being abused. “We trusted Kellie and feel betrayed. We want justice for Henry. Kellie needs to be held accountable to what she did to a vulnerable child. Henry trusted her, we trusted her and now a little life is gone,” the family member said. When they heard about Kellie’s reasoning of the toddler self-harming himself to cause injuries, they said it was completely false. “Henry did not have self-harming tendencies outside of typical toddler tantrums. Even with the tantrums, he did not ‘throw himself around,’” the family members said. “His grandma Kayla had no issues when she would bathe him and Henry enjoyed bath time when he was with her. Our family does not believe in any way, shape, or form that Henry inflicted the injuries that caused his death on himself.”

After Elizabeth Shoaf was abducted by 36-year-old Vinson Filyaw, she did everything she could to escape — and eventually succeeded when she stole his phone to send a text to her mom.

For 10 harrowing days in September 2006, 14-year-old Elizabeth Shoaf was held in an underground bunker by a rapist named Vinson Filyaw.

Filyaw had posed as a police officer and “arrested” Shoaf just after she had gotten off the school bus. Then, he led her through the woods to a dank bunker, where he sexually assaulted her repeatedly for days.

Despite the perilous situation she found herself in, however, Shoaf managed to turn the tables on her captor. She won his trust by pretending to be in love with him, and when he let his guard down, she used it to her advantage.

One night, while he was sleeping, Shoaf used Filyaw’s phone to text her mother, writing, “Hi mom. I’m in a hole across from Charm Hill where the big trucks go in and out. There’s a bomb. Call police.”

She led police directly to the bunker — and saved herself.

Vinson Filyaw Was “A Person That Holds A Grudge”

Vinson Filyaw was a troubled man. His father died when he was an infant, and his mother remarried, but as he explained to NBC’s Dateline, he had “pretty much a normal family” after his mother remarried.

“I mean, nothing traumatic. Nothing you would think would make a person go out and do something crazy or psychotic or anything like that,” he said.

As a teen, Filyaw was a Boy Scout who enjoyed the outdoors and camping. He had fallen in love with the Rambo movies and enjoyed martial arts, but he fell in love with something else too, something that doctors later claimed damaged his brain: alcohol.

Filyaw was effectively in the throes of alcoholism before he reached full adulthood, so when he later began seeing a woman named Cindy Hall, he viewed their relationship as his redemption from alcoholism. Hall was a single mother of three, and Filyaw began working construction to provide for her and the children, with whom he says he had become close — especially with the child he called Peanut.

“Me and her grew real close,” he said. “I mean, we were inseparable you know? She pretty much felt like she was my little, second housewife if you know what I mean.”

Then, towards the end of 2005, Peanut told her teacher that Filyaw had been sexually assaulting her. In November of that year, a judge issued a search warrant for Filyaw. Police gathered information, talked to people who worked with Filyaw, and corroborated Peanut’s story. All signs pointed to Filyaw going to jail.

From his Dateline interview, it was clear that Filyaw resented both Peanut and the police.

“Kershaw County [Police] never came and questioned me,” he said. “Instead they questioned everyone I worked with. You know, they never came in the house. Why not ask me whether I did something or not?”

AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain, Pool/Alamy Stock PhotoVinson Filyaw saw his abduction of Elizabeth Shoaf as a game he was playing with police.

Filyaw really didn’t want to go to prison — so he decided to start living in the woods. At first, he camped out in a tent, but then he started making plans for a bunker, and he started digging.

According to Filyaw, this bunker had “all the furnishings of home,” including a solar shower, a propane gas stove, a fireplace, and a collapsible top. He kept a cell phone in the bunker and powered everything via a 12-volt system.

Despite all of his trouble keeping this location a secret, it was shockingly close to his backyard, and at night he would often sneak out to see Hall.

But Peanut was gone. She had been placed into foster care. And Filyaw couldn’t let the perceived sleight against him go unpunished.

“I guess you could say I’m a person that holds a grudge,” he admitted.

He went to a nearby Wal-Mart and picked up handcuffs, night vision goggles, a taser, and a gun. He had intended to kidnap and abuse Peanut, but with her safely with another family, Filyaw had to make a new plan.

“The second plan was to kidnap somebody else,” Filyaw explained, “and to basically, to draw all of Kershaw County into one general area and then just blow them all up.”

By pure chance, that somebody ended up being Elizabeth Shoaf.

The Kidnapping Of Elizabeth Shoaf

Filyaw continued to skulk around the woods looking for his next victim — and he found her on Sept. 6, 2006, when he saw Elizabeth Shoaf step off her school bus.

According to an A&E report, Filyaw had crafted himself a fake cop costume and badge. Disguising himself as a police officer, he approached Shoaf, made up a story about a marijuana charge, and placed the 14-year-old in handcuffs.

He didn’t keep the masquerade up for long, though, as he led Shoaf through the woods and back to his bunker. There, he ordered her to strip naked, chained her by the neck, and raped her.

He continued to sexually assault her over her 10 days in the bunker. Still, this abduction was never really about Shoaf — or so Filyaw later claimed.

WIS News 10A screenshot of a local news broadcast visiting the bunker where Vinson Filyaw kept Elizabeth Shoaf.

“I was in a game mode,” the abductor said. “My one and only purpose was to get back at Kershaw County, at all cost. It all fell together like clockwork. I mean, I didn’t have to do anything.”

Shoaf soon realized that if she ever hoped to escape from this underground prison, then her only hope was to make Filyaw like her.

“I always would do what he told me to do,” she later explained. “And like he’d always call me baby. So I’d call him that back. And he’d tell me he loved me, and I told him I love him. Which is — I’d act like I really liked him and I wanted to be with him.”

Shoaf’s ploy worked. An odd relationship developed between them, and Filyaw suddenly began to show his victim some semblance of pity. He unchained her, let her go outside, and occasionally allowed her to play games on his phone.

Then, one night while Filyaw was sleeping, Shoaf followed through on her plan — and sent a text that would save her life.

How Elizabeth Shoaf Saved Herself

“Hi mom,” the text read. “I’m in a hole across from Charm Hill where the big trucks go in and out. There’s a bomb. Call police.”

Detectives were skeptical at first. This was either one of the most incredible breakthroughs in a missing persons case they had ever seen or it was nothing more than a cruel prank. Thankfully, investigators realized the text was, in fact, from Shoaf and moved into action.

Vinson Filyaw, meanwhile, had been keeping a close eye on news reports about him. The U.S. Marshal’s Office traced the phone’s location and police and helicopters quickly surrounded the bunker.

Filyaw saw the report on how police learned of the bunker’s location via a text and flew into a rage — but he was scared and panicked, too.

“I told him he needed to leave because if they’d catch him, he would go to jail,” Shoaf recalled.

Filyaw’s plan was coming to fruition; he had the Kershaw County Police exactly where he wanted them — and then he fled. He would later tell investigators that he didn’t really want to die. He had planned to steal a car and make his escape, but he was completely surrounded.

Kershaw County Sheriff’s OfficeVinson Filyaw after his arrest.

“There was cops everywhere,” he said. “So I got down on my knees and put my hands up in the air… I mean, all three of [the cops] just jumped on me and beat the crap out of me. Honestly, I thought they were going to kill me after they started beating me like that.”

After his arrest, Filyaw tried to take advantage to the morbid notoriety he’d earned with his cruelty toward Shoaf.

He wrote a 120-page manuscript about his crime, including several references to the fact that people used to get married at 12, which he saw as justification for his actions.

Shoaf, on the other hand, moved on with her life. Detectives heard her screaming and found her, but they refused to take any credit for her rescue.

“I received credit many times for saving her and I did not,” recalled former chief investigator David Thomley. “That child saved herself.”

Shoaf eventually graduated from college and began working as a dental assistant. In 2013, she spoke about her experience and how she moved on from it, saying, “You can be a survivor just like I am. It simply takes faith, it takes talking to someone and encouragement that it’s not the end of the world.”

Lauren Perkins has always dreamed of becoming a mom. After spending a difficult year trying and failing to fall pregnant, the idea of fertility treatment didn’t seem so scary anymore. She and her husband, David, decided to take a vacation to Nicaragua to consider their next step. The couple, along with some friends, did exactly that. Whilst there, Lauren talked openly about their struggles to conceive.

One of their friends, a priest replied calmly, Someone up there has big plans for you. I don’t know what, but it will be big. At the time, it sounded strange. Lauren would soon realize the words really carried some weight.

After the Nicaragua trip, Lauren returned home to Texas. She didn’t think much about what the priest had said during the vacation. On the contrary, her and David had decided on one thing. They wanted to try out artificial insemination, the simplest method of assisted fertilization. Lauren was convinced that it wouldn’t work, that she was destined to be barren.

But it did. Lauren finally fell pregnant. In the first routine check, Lauren was told by nurses that her HCG levels were very high. That meant that there was a strong possibility that there was more than one child growing inside of her. Lauren and her husband were delighted at the idea they might have twins or even triplets.

They had struggled for so long to have a child that the idea of having more than one was too good to be true. Then the ultrasound came. A staggered doctor studied the screen for a few seconds and delivered the shocking news. The doctor quietly told her, I count five in there. Lauren thought this was impossible.

The doctor turned back to the screen and then continued, Wait a minute. I just found a 6th baby. The confused couple stared at the screen in complete shock. Six. Lauren and David were then faced with a difficult decision.

Either they could reduce the amount of children or keep them all. The chances that all six babies would survive the pregnancy were low. To have six at the same time brings on a number of dangerous complications. After much deliberation, Lauren and David finally decided to give all six a fighting chance. Their doctors promised to do everything they could to ensure every baby was delivered safely.

The hospital went through with a mighty effort to avoid complications associated with the birth. Monday morning, April 23, 2012 the day arrived. Lauren was in week 30 of her pregnancy. Children born before the 37th week are considered premature. A total of 35 people from the hospital gathered inside the delivery room as the birth got underway.

The doctor needed the help of six nurses standing by to receive each baby. As it came into the world. No easy task and certainly one rife with stress. I was nervous and excited all at once. It was starting to sink in that this is for real.

I was going to have six babies, Lauren said. It took a total of four minutes to deliver all six Andrew, Benjamin, Carolyn, Leah, Allison and Levi all weighed between one and £2 at birth. Lawrence said. I didn’t expect to see my babies until the next day, but each baby’s team rolled them by me one by one on their way up to the NICU, and I got to touch their little fingers. The children were not healthy enough to be with the parents in the first few days.

At four days old, Allison was the first baby in a stable enough condition to be held. It took the nurse ten minutes to get all the wires and monitors up so Lauren could hold her. But what a feeling, and that moment when I got to hold my baby was when I became a mother of six tuplets, Lauren explained. The first few weeks were crucial in the lives of the babies. Their parents were worried about complications that could potentially lead to disabilities or, in the worst case, death.

Fortunately, all six recovered slowly but surely. After many intense weeks of love and care from the staff in the neonatal facility, the family were able to hold all of their Angels. Five of the babies were able to go home. At four months old, little Leah had to stay in the hospital for an additional few weeks. If she was the smallest and had struggled for space inside the womb, she was literally buried under everyone else in the womb, said Lauren.

So she didn’t get the right nutritional flow. Her brain was not fully developed. The family has had an abundance of support from loved ones, which has helped them immeasurably when it comes to getting through the hardest and most difficult of periods. Donations from others have also come in, both from family and complete strangers touched by the birth and Lauren’s story. Lauren, of course, has high praise indeed for all the medical staff involved.

Without them, the children may never have been strong enough to go home. My doctor is the best, and I’m forever grateful for him for the level of care I receive, Lauren says. Also, the NICU staff who put in hours upon hours getting our children ready to come home and teaching us the ins and outs of Premier care. So many of those people have a special place in our hearts and family. Only recently, Andrew, Noah, Benjamin, Luke, Carolyn, Grace, Leah, Michelle, Allison, Kate and Levi Thomas celebrated their 6th birthday.

The family has adapted to a newer, more full on way of life. I call it semicontrolled chaos, Lauren told Today. We had to get very scheduled and very structured and organized, especially in the first year. The boys Andrew, Benjamin and Levi and the two girls Alison and Carolyn are perfectly healthy today. Leah, Meanwhile has had things a bit tougher as a result of her brain not being fully developed prior to birth.

She will probably need to be cared by her parents for a long time to come. That said she has started school along with her siblings. She goes to general preschool for children with disabilities but she always gives 100% and laughs all the time. She is our Sunshine. Lauren says what an incredible story.

What an incredible family. We wish the six children all the very best in the future and look forward to seeing how they’re doing in a few years. Share and like if you think their story is a heartwarming one.

This past summer, Kelsie Skillen, 19, was beaten by her boyfriend, James McCourt, 19 in Glasgow, Scotland. Kelsie, a makeup artist, shared pictures of her injuries on Facebook.

McCourt had locked her in the house and beat on her for four hours.

Why did he do this you ask?

The couple had just returned home, and McCourt didn’t have his jacket or cigarettes.

They had gotten left behind, so he got angry, blamed Kelsie and then beat her for it.

Kelsie managed to escape when McCourt went to the bathroom. She used her iPad to call her mom.

After being found, Kelsie was rushed to the hospital, her face was swollen and covered in bruises and cuts.

In her post, Kelsie apologized for the graphic nature of the photos.

She explained that she wanted to warn other people about McCourt.

She didn’t want anyone else to go through what she was going through.

McCourt pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 21 months in jail.

McCourt said he didn’t care if he went to prison or not.

Also, the judge, Sam Cathcart, said that McCourt will be supervised for 8 months after he is released from prison.

Finally, McCourt cannot have any contact with Kelsie for five years.

The injuries Kelsie suffered caused her to miss work for three weeks.

Kelsie’s post was shared over 1,400 times.

Many people left comments telling her how brave she was and praised her for speaking out.

Share away, people.

The bus driver, Isabel Lane, noticed Axel’s expression change from happy to sad, but she was determined to persuade him that taking the bus and going to school with a lot more kids his age was not unsafe. Isabel put her hand behind her as Axel sat in the seat behind her, and Axel grabbed it. It was a lovely moment that Amy managed to catch on film.

A teen girl was savagely stomped by over a dozen suspects, and it was all caught on video. As if the brutal attack wasn’t bad enough, though, what one young man was seen doing to the girl while she was “bleeding like crazy” on the sidewalk makes it even worse.

Carlita Gorden was working at a nearby salon when she heard screaming after a group of suspects violently assaulted and robbed a 15-year-old girl in Brooklyn, New York, at 4 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon. Gorden ran to the scene on Utica Avenue near Sterling Place in Crown Heights, and she was left disturbed by what she saw.

A girl was on the sidewalk and over a dozen suspects had savagely stomped on her. “For so many kids to jump on one individual, it’s just ridiculous,” Gorden said, according to CBS. The girl was “grabbing her book bag. No shoes, just sitting … with no shoes. Then, you see the little one holding her sneakers, running away,” Gordan recalled.

The incident was caught on surveillance video, and in it, you see the girl being knocked to the sidewalk by one male before over a dozen others join the attack and begin stomping her. The size of the mob quickly swelled in seconds as more and more suspects converged on the girl, joining in on the brutal beating.

“Come on, it’s sad. We have to do better as a community. We have to do better as people in general. That this little girl could’ve lost her life; it’s really sad,” Gorden said, and after seeing the footage of the suspects in the crowd taking turns stomping on her and kicking her, it’s hard not to agree.

Five suspects, all minors, turned themselves in the following day, according to New York City police. Armed with the footage, the police said they were searching for the remaining suspects involved in the violent gang assault. Investigators believe that the attack was a retaliation for an earlier incident, but they didn’t say what the earlier incident was about.

In a video taken from another position at the intersection, the mob is captured as they begin to disperse after they savagely stomped the girl in the attack. Sadly, in that footage, one suspect is seen pulling the girl’s sneakers right off of her feet while she’s crumpled on the sidewalk and bleeding. As the sneaker thief makes his getaway, he’s caught on camera, appearing to laugh and smile.

The victim was treated at a hospital for bruising and swelling to her face and body from the savage stomping she received. In addition to her shoes, her phone and debit card were also stolen. The attack has rightfully left the community shaken and fearful.

“I didn’t need no trouble,” said Anita Peavy. The incident occurred in front of her electronics store, and she said she quickly brought down the gate and went outside. “I [was] scared the kids [would] come in here and just go crazy the way they were going crazy out there,” she explained. “I have never witnessed anything like that yet in my life … To see such a small kid just dropping on one kid, it was crazy.”

“She was bleeding like crazy,” Peavy added, explaining that she’s also a registered nurse and that she tried to help the victim after she was savagely stomped by the crowd. “We just tried to keep her calm and sitting there until the ambulance come,” she added.

Longtime community activist Tony Herbert said the victim is his cousin and the attack definitely had lasting effects beyond just physical injury. “She’s traumatized right now. She’s in a bit of pain,” he explained. “[Her] mom is just devastated right now to think that she sent her daughter to go to school to turn around and hear that she was a victim of an assault in the very city that she spent her life in.”

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams condemned the attack, but sadly, this isn’t a new problem in the community. In fact, before the incident, the NYPD had just recently assigned more than 300 officers to serve as youth coordinators to crack down on crimes where offenders are younger than 18 years old, proving that criminal incidents involving minors, like this one, aren’t anything new.

While teens are notorious for getting into trouble, this takes it to a whole other level. This is attempted murder and a complete disregard for another human life. That’s not okay. Regardless of any prior incident that may have occurred, a mob of over a dozen males convening on a single teen girl, who didn’t stand a chance, and savagely stomping on her repeatedly is overkill, criminal, and, above all, cowardly.

We all do silly things as kids. After all, part of growing up is learning when to say no to something that sounds dangerous.

Unfortunately, children are susceptive to peer pressure and the like; even the most intelligent of youngsters can be coerced and convinced to partake in stunts that promise dire consequences.

Just ask the parents of 11-year-old Tyler Broome, who suffered horrific injuries after trying a YouTube craze known as ‘the roundabout of death’.

Yes, the name alone pretty much tells you the salient facts of the matter, but for Tyler it wasn’t so much an incredibly dangerous stunt as a way to show his friends how fearless he was.

The 11-year-old thereafter sustained injuries consistent with those seen in fighter pilots, after bein subjected to extreme gravitational force (G-force).

The craze he participated in – known as the ’roundabout of death’ – sees participants sitting in the middle of a playground roundabout whilst it’s spun at high speed using the rear wheel of a motorcycle.

Shortly after the ordeal, Tyler was found unconscious near the roundabout, left with possible damage to his brain and vision.

Extreme force
It’s believed he was subjected to the sort of G-force usually only encountered by pilots and astronauts.

It’s reported that Tyler was at a local park with a friend when they were approached by a group of older teenagers who dared them into the game.

Terrifying ordeal
“I don’t recognise my child – he is on the verge of having a stroke. Tyler sat on the roundabout, and the boy who came over was about 17. Tyler doesn’t know him, they are not friends,” his mom Dawn said, per British newspaper The Independent.

“He puts his motorbike on the floor, gets the roundabout spinning at such a speed. When they all stopped, the group just cleared off – it is bullying.”

Dawn claimed that hospital staff had never seen such injuries and had to do research before they were able to begin treating her son.

As a parent, a lot of times you might get a call from your child’s school – for a lot of parents it’s not a cause for concern. However, these parents got a very worried call from their child’s school asking for an emergency meeting.

And the reason for the meeting was one you could not believe…

A man recently wrote about his experience with his son’s school. His son drew something in class which concerned his teacher greatly and prompted them to set up an emergency meeting with his parents.

The entire situation unfolded in a comic manner which prompted the amused dad to post about it on Facebook so others could have a laugh about it too. His Facebook post read, “Our six-year-old handed us a note. His teacher had called my wife and I in for an emergency meeting. We asked our son if he had any idea why and he said, ‘She didn’t like a drawing I did’.”

“We went in the next day and his teacher pulled out the drawing and said, ‘I asked him to draw his family and he drew this, would you mind explaining?’”

The drawing depicted four people with what appeared to be ropes around their necks. Of course, anyone with little information about the family would be concerned about seeing a drawing like that.

The parents did not blink an eye and did not even realize the picture would need an explanation. The dad replied immediately to quell any worries for the teacher, “We were snorkeling off the Bahamas.”

People on the internet however debated whether this was warranted on the teacher’s behalf.

“This is bloody hysteria,” one person wrote. “Seriously, who needs that drama.”

“Emergency meeting over this? I know it’s not the best drawing but I think it’s pretty clear…” another user wrote.

“What kind of teacher was this?” another wondered. “Children are innocent… they take pleasure from innocent drawings.

However, some users thought the teacher did the right thing. A user chimed in, “I would want to know, even if it’s a false alarm… it’s better safe than sorry.”

Another person pointed out how the meeting would not have been necessary had the teacher just asked the child. The user added,  “As a teacher, I would have asked the kid what it was. The kid would have said snorkeling. End of story.”

But others maintained that it was better to be safe than sorry. A user wrote, “It doesn’t matter what they say, the kid is six. You have to perform due diligence.”

Then this person concluded, “The teacher did the right thing. These interventions have saved lives. Seriously.”

We all love babies, right? Many parents are actually surprised at how small and delicate their newborn is, making them worried that they will do something wrong that inadvertently hurts the baby.

Many people have never even seen a newborn, let alone held one, making them unfamiliar beings, to say the least.

Parents also might be concerned that their baby is too cold, too hot, too full, or not full enough, or sleeping too much or too little. Another worry is whether or not it’s safe to take your baby outside or to let other people hold them.

When newborn girl Frankie took her first breath in this world, the medical professionals attending her birth were speechless. She brought with her an unusual and medically fascinating condition – she was afflicted in a manner rarely if ever observed by doctors anywhere.

According to the doctors, the child had only 35ml of blood in her entire body – the equivalent of two tablespoons, which is seven times less than the average amount inside a newborn baby. As the doctors said, the miracle baby was reportedly born with more water than blood in her body – but survived against the odds. She had to be resuscitated as soon as she was born after her mother, Maria, had to have an emergency Caesarean when doctors discovered the baby was not moving inside the womb. The list of explanations for why doctors expected her to perish within minutes was immense, and they were blunt with the’s parents about what was most likely about to happen.

Frankie had water where her blood should be. Perhaps a quarter of a cup of blood coursed through her veins. Her mother would later describe her baby to The Mirror as bloated from the disproportionate amount of water inside of her. The doctors were left stunned. They’d never encountered this phenomenon before, and were resigned to what they knew must be Frankie’s fate. It seemed that the baby’s mother was the only one in the room avoiding a breakdown.

She was dedicated to hoping against hope that her baby would find a way to pull through. Before she knew it, it seemed as if she might get her wish. It took a few transfusions of blood to improve her standing, but Frankie managed to bounce back. Soon she was functioning exceptionally well. Half a year later, Sandars’s consultant couldn’t believe that the beautiful, healthy young girl before him really was Frankie. “…He was nearly in tears…” Sandars remembered. It was a story to warm the hearts of anyone railing against the odds for the best outcome to happen for their loved ones.