The tragic story of Sam Terblanche, a bright 20-year-old Columbia University junior, began on a seemingly ordinary Saturday, September 16, 2023. Feeling unwell during a subway ride to a Yankee Stadium soccer match, Sam’s symptoms worsened rapidly. He sought help at the emergency room twice in quick succession—on Sunday and again on Monday—each time presenting with alarming headache and chills. Both visits, however, concluded with the same dismissive diagnosis: ‘Acute viral syndrome.’
Leaving the hospital after his second visit on Monday night, Sam texted his parents, reassuring them with the ER’s assessment: ‘Just a bad virus, will have to advil, vomit, and hydrate it out.’
His father, relieved yet still concerned, replied, ‘Ugh, Good news re no major known problem (I guess).’
Just three days later, on Thursday, September 21, Villiers Terblanche received a devastating call from a Columbia dean. ‘When he said ‘I’ve got sad news,’ I knew something bad happened,’ Villiers later recounted in a deposition. The news plunged their family into chaos, with Sam’s mother, Louise, letting out ‘the most piercing primal scream I’ve heard in my life,’ and his younger brother, Ben, completely breaking down.
Even two years on, Sam’s father, known as ‘VT,’ grapples with the incomprehensible reality: how could his 20-year-old son, after two emergency room visits within 24 hours, succumb to his illness alone in his dorm room just two days later?
Two months following Sam’s death, Villiers met with Tracy Breen, then Mount Sinai Morningside’s chief medical officer (now president). Villiers, who recorded the meeting and later submitted it as part of pretrial discovery, listened as Breen stated the hospital was ‘comfortable, satisfied, whatever totally non-helpful word we use’ with their decision to discharge Sam. For Villiers, it was a ‘gut punch.’
While Breen acknowledged Sam’s death was an ER provider’s ‘worst nightmare,’ likely causing staff to question, ‘Did I get it wrong?’, she simultaneously declared the review details ‘confidential and internal,’ inaccessible to the grieving father.
As a lifelong lawyer, Villiers viewed this meeting as a critical turning point. He questioned how a hospital executive could admit to potential human error among doctors, yet maintain the hospital’s blamelessness without offering any substantiating evidence. This encounter ignited his determination to fight for answers. In August 2024, he filed a lawsuit against Mount Sinai Morningside and five of its doctors, alleging medical malpractice and wrongful death. Mount Sinai offered its condolences but refrained from commenting on the ongoing case.
The hospital’s statement noted: ‘Any patient loss profoundly affects not only families, but also the care teams who dedicate themselves to providing the highest quality care.’
The Pressures of Emergency Care: ‘Moving the Meat’
While the lawsuit, Terblanche v. Mount Sinai Morningside, focuses on the strict legal definition of ‘standard of care,’ Sam’s case highlights broader, urgent questions about the state of emergency medicine. Can we realistically expect ER physicians, human and fallible, to consistently perform flawlessly within a system pushed to its absolute limits? Where exactly does adequate care end and failure begin, and who decides this crucial boundary beyond courtrooms? The numbers are staggering: 155 million ER visits in 2022, a significant jump from 130 million in 2018, and these figures are projected to rise further due to factors like upcoming Medicaid cuts. Compounding this, a third of Americans now lack a primary care physician, up from a quarter a decade ago, forcing more patients into emergency departments for routine or less severe conditions.
Image: Ben Terblanche at home with his parents, Louise and VT. Ben shared, ‘I talked to him about everything,’ a poignant testament to his bond with Sam.
Emergency rooms, once reserved for critical, life-threatening incidents like midnight fevers, severe injuries, or car crashes, have now become the de facto primary care provider for millions. Patients arrive with a vast array of ailments: stomach pain, chest pain, coughs, head injuries, overdoses, vague complaints, depression, hypertension, and even hunger.
As Reuben Strayer, an emergency physician at Maimonides Health in Brooklyn, N.Y., and creator of the widely viewed ‘Emergency Thinking’ lecture, puts it, ‘The spectrum of disease is just unbelievable.’
Strayer explained that an ER physician’s foremost duty is to identify and resuscitate patients in immediate critical danger. These cases are often straightforward: ‘If someone just got shot in the chest and they’re unconscious, you know right where they are.’
However, the real challenge lies in identifying patients whose danger isn’t immediately apparent. This demands an extremely rigorous and nuanced assessment of those who are neither critically ill nor overtly healthy. Strayer noted, ‘You can take vital signs and if their vitals are reassuring and they look OK, the vast majority of them are OK. But not all of them.’ He emphasized that the increasing number of ‘well’ patients who use the ER as their primary care makes finding these ‘needles in a haystack’ – patients who appear stable but are in hidden danger – exponentially harder.
ER staff face immense pressure to expedite patient discharges, a task some cynically refer to as ‘moving the meat.’ Hospitals are strained by aging infrastructure and financial pressures, pushing them to near capacity. In 2022, the American College of Emergency Physicians warned President Joe Biden that ‘boarding’ – where patients languish in the ER for days or weeks awaiting hospital admission – constitutes ‘a public health emergency.’ These critically ill, waiting patients monopolize staff time while a constant influx of new emergencies demands attention.
Allen Kachalia, senior vice president of patient safety and quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine, articulated the danger: ‘You can imagine, when someone comes in with more subtle or not-so-subtle symptoms, there’s a higher risk that they could get missed.’
Despite the immense challenges, ER diagnostic accuracy is generally high. However, a recent systematic review revealed that approximately 5.7 percent of ER patients experience at least one diagnostic error, leading to setbacks for 2 percent. A smaller, yet significant, 0.3 percent suffer serious harm, including an estimated 50 deaths annually in an average ER with 25,000 yearly visits. While some ER doctors dispute these figures, the issue of misdiagnosis is undeniable. A key contributing factor, according to the review, is ‘the cognitive challenge’ of identifying dangerous conditions in patients presenting with vague, mild, or fleeting symptoms.
During his second ER visit, Sam still reported a headache, though the medical record noted it was ‘Not the worst headache of his life.’
The Critical Two ER Visits
Villiers (‘VT’) and Louise Terblanche, originally from South Africa, raised their sons, including Sam, primarily in Abu Dhabi, where VT was a partner at a prominent law firm. Despite their wealth, VT often described himself as ‘Calvinist,’ embodying a sensible and successful demeanor, with a natural inclination to trust established authorities. Throughout my nearly year-long conversations with him, the word ‘grief’ was notably absent from his vocabulary.
Image: VT Terblanche, a lawyer, took a leave from his firm after Sam’s death.
He confided that he still dreams of Sam multiple times a week, though he no longer wakes up questioning the reality of it. ‘I know it happened,’ he said.
In the aftermath of Sam’s death, the Terblanches relocated to New York. VT took a sabbatical from his law firm to pursue a master’s in health policy at New York University. In his deep dive into hospital safety and risk, he uncovered a shocking statistic: over 200,000 people die annually from preventable medical errors. He calculated this grim figure to be equivalent to at least one fatal Boeing 747 crash every week.
The day after the soccer match, Sam’s condition worsened dramatically. That Sunday evening, he walked with a friend to the Mount Sinai Morningside ER, detailing his severe headache and chills. Doctors performed a physical exam, ruling out meningitis, and tested him for flu, COVID-19, and RSV, all returning negative results. After receiving Tylenol and Zofran, Sam was sent home.
By Monday, his condition deteriorated further. He texted his girlfriend, Kayla Francais, stating he felt ‘really bad lol.’ He’d spent the entire day vomiting, woke from a nap shivering uncontrollably, and experienced agonizing leg cramps in the shower.
Kayla, also 20, consulted her mother and insisted he return to the ER.
‘I think so too,’ Sam agreed.
Sam arrived back at Mount Sinai Morningside just after 8 p.m. on Monday, September 18. In emergency room terms, he was a ‘bounce back’ – a patient returning within a short period, which typically signals a critical red flag.
His symptoms had escalated: he was now breathless when walking and developed a cough. His medical record documented a fever of 100.6 degrees Fahrenheit and a heart rate of 126 beats per minute—significantly higher than the normal adult range of 60 to 100.
Text messages between Sam and his girlfriend, Kayla, from Monday evening:
- Sam: ‘I just woke up from nap’
- Sam: ‘Tried taking some tylenol’
- Kayla: ‘yes maxwell told me’
- Sam: ‘And immediately vomited’
- Kayla: ‘Oh no babe’
- Sam: ‘All of my soup out’
- Sam: ‘I get nauseous from drinking water’
- Kayla: ‘Oh no’
- Kayla: ‘u think it’s from the headache?’
- Sam: ‘I dont know’
Aditya Banerjee, a first-year resident with less than a month of ER experience, examined Sam during this second visit. He later testified that he ‘deferred all of my assessments and medical decision-making to the attending physician,’ who that night was veteran physician Samuel Agyare. Dr. Agyare, in his deposition, noted he was working full-time at Mount Sinai Morningside and part-time at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx.
Mount Sinai Morningside faced considerable challenges post-COVID. Throughout 2023, ER nursing levels were critically low, leading to a nearly million-dollar award to union nurses in February 2024 for understaffed shifts. The hospital also received a ‘C’ safety grade from the Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit watchdog, for three consecutive years starting in 2022.
Dr. Agyare testified that the ER was ‘very busy’ on the night of Sam’s second visit. Recognizing Sam from the previous night, he personally escorted him to a bed in the pediatric ER for examination.
Banerjee also examined Sam, then collaborated with Agyare to formulate a plan. As Banerjee began documenting Sam’s care, an automated pop-up alert flashed on his screen. Sam’s elevated fever and heart rate had triggered a warning for sepsis, a critical, life-threatening immune response to infection demanding immediate action. This alert, designed to ensure compliance with state sepsis regulations, presented a checklist of tests and orders for identification and treatment.
However, Agyare had directed Banerjee to prioritize hydration for Sam, instructing him to await lab results before initiating a chest X-ray or prescribing powerful antibiotics for sepsis.
As a novice, Banerjee struggled with the electronic health record’s template, unable to selectively apply the auto-populated sepsis orders. He testified, ‘This was my first patient that triggered the sepsis pathway,’ prompting him to seek assistance from third-year resident Connor Welsh.
At 8:50 p.m., Welsh assisted Banerjee, accessing Sam’s chart from his own computer. He then actively overrode the sepsis alert, recording an automated note stating, ‘Based on my evaluation, this patient does not meet clinical criteria for bacterial sepsis.’ Welsh further documented what Banerjee relayed from Agyare: ‘Likely viral syndrome. Workup pending.’ Despite his name appearing on the note, Welsh later testified he never directly interacted with Sam, explaining that such assistance for junior residents is common. He affirmed, ‘I signed this note based on the discussion with the provider, Dr. Banerjee, based on his evaluation and the medical management of Mr. Terblanche.’
Image: Louise Terblanche in her husband’s home office. After his second ER visit, Sam, still unwell in his dorm room, asked his mother what to eat. She texted back, ‘Chicken is really good.’
While this unfolded, Sam, looking exhausted, lay propped up in bed 36. His friend, Charlie Sagner, waited in the lobby, later describing Sam’s appearance as ‘Zombie-like’ to other friends. Around 9 p.m., Sam texted his parents in Abu Dhabi: ‘Back at ER. Theyre giving me fluids and doing blood tests.’
‘Oh honey,’ Louise replied, ‘Can I call?’
The Challenge of ‘Note Bloat’ in Medical Records
Sam’s medical chart, a daunting 51-page document filled with billing codes, abbreviations, checkboxes, and numerous updates, contained striking contradictions during his second visit. For instance, his heart rate was recorded at 126 bpm, yet Banerjee marked it as ‘normal.’ The chart inconsistently reported whether Sam had a cough, and even included signatures from doctors who later testified they never saw him—one of whom wasn’t even in the hospital that night. Furthermore, vital signs and an EKG were ordered but never recorded as taken.
Villiers Terblanche meticulously reviewed the chart, searching for answers, and found it baffling. He questioned why a physician would override a critical alert specifically designed to protect his son from danger.
Many physicians view electronic medical records as a burdensome and frustrating chore. They argue that these systems have prioritized billing and legal defense over actual clinical care, and that the constant stream of well-intentioned alerts and pop-ups often serve more as distractions than helpful tools.
‘Note bloat,’ as it’s known, describes the overwhelming volume of redundant messages generated by electronic medical charts. Allen Kachalia of Johns Hopkins explained that automated decision-making prompts remain largely unsophisticated. He noted, ‘While they can help, the problem is they often over alert,’ akin to a car alarm sounding indiscriminately. This unreliability can lead to ‘alert fatigue,’ causing medical staff to develop a habit of ignoring crucial warnings.
The emergency physicians interviewed largely sympathized with the decision to override the sepsis alert. They highlighted that in late 2023, during the COVID era, ERs were overwhelmed with young patients presenting viral symptoms like fever, headache, and nausea, most of whom would recover without complications.
However, they concurred that Sam’s medical record from his second visit was sparse. While checkboxes and templates can streamline efficiency, doctors admitted they can also divert attention from the patient’s immediate condition.
During her meeting with Villiers, even Mount Sinai Morningside executive Tracy Breen conceded that clinical decision-making was ‘not well captured in the medical record in general.’ She revealed that after Sam’s death, they discussed ‘maybe how to better capture that, just to tell your story better’ with the team.
Crucially, Sam’s chart lacked the ‘why.’ Despite worsening symptoms—shortness of breath, a cough, and inability to keep down food or drink—Dr. Agyare initially declared Sam ‘unlikely to require admission.’ Why did he not prescribe antibiotics as a precaution? In his deposition, Agyare stated that apart from a mild fever and elevated heart rate, Sam’s physical exam was ‘entirely unremarkable.’
Agyare further clarified that he did not order a chest X-ray because Sam’s lungs sounded normal, stating, ‘The patient was not in respiratory distress. His breath rate was within normal limits.’
Sam’s text messages sent after his second ER discharge:
- Sam: ‘I cant believe i still just have a virus’
- Sam: ‘How anticlimatic’
- Sam: ‘I really thought i was dying’
All six ER physicians consulted noted the critical omission of a chest X-ray. When a ‘bounce-back’ patient, especially one with potential sepsis, returns, a physician should actively pursue evidence of infection. A chest X-ray could have confirmed or ruled out conditions like pneumonia, internal bleeding, or fluid accumulation in the lungs.
However, the doctors also cautioned that even a chest X-ray might not have changed the outcome. Maria Raven, chief of emergency medicine at UCSF Medical Center, stated, ‘It might have been normal and he still might have died.’ Each expert stressed that their insights were based on records, not direct examination.
Conflicting Signals: Abnormal, Yet ‘Not Concerning’?
In May, I joined the Terblanche family and Kayla at their farmhouse table, recalling Sam. He was a passionate debater, sometimes stubbornly certain, but always striving for good in his relationships. He was the kind of thoughtful boyfriend who helped Kayla craft bracelets for a Taylor Swift concert, even wearing one himself that read ‘boyfriend.’ Sam was a dedicated environmentalist and an advocate for Palestinian rights. As an empath, he playfully challenged his father’s unwavering stoicism. Kayla, referencing Taylor Swift, described him as ‘a pathological people pleaser.’
Kayla, a gender-studies major, offered a poignant theory: given documented biases against women and people of color in ERs, Sam, as a young man, may have been reluctant to ‘seem weak’ or advocate forcefully for himself. She believes he understood the severity of his illness but struggled to voice it effectively.
Sam’s youth, health, and fitness may have inadvertently hindered his diagnosis. ER doctors explained that young bodies often compensate for illness or trauma effectively, appearing stable until a sudden, catastrophic decline – they ‘fall off a cliff.’
During his August deposition, Dr. Agyare described Sam as ‘a well young man who communicated well and was not in distress,’ reflecting his perception of Sam’s appearance.
Image: Kayla Francais, Sam’s girlfriend, theorized that in the hospital Sam didn’t want to be a bother and didn’t advocate for himself.
Image: Sam’s Columbia College I.D., showing he was studying sustainable development and economics. Image: A photo of Kayla and Sam, cherished on her wall.
After 9 p.m., Sam’s lab results began to arrive. Nearly three dozen of the 70-plus results were flagged as ‘abnormal’ with arrows and exclamation points. Yet, Dr. Agyare testified that these were not clinically concerning in Sam’s case, an assessment largely echoed by the emergency doctors I consulted, with one describing them as ‘no smoking gun.’
Sepsis lacks a definitive single blood test. Sam’s white blood cell count, often high (or very low in severe cases) during sepsis, was normal. His lactate levels, another sepsis indicator, were also within normal range.
The medical adage ‘When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras’ suggests prioritizing common diagnoses over rare ones. However, Villiers Terblanche firmly believes his son died of sepsis, a leading cause of hospital deaths, known for its diagnostic difficulty.
Dr. Benjamin Miko, an infectious disease expert from Columbia University prepared to testify for Sam’s case, emphasized that with two distinct sepsis warnings in the electronic health record, ‘it’s not really up to the doctors to say, ‘We don’t want to do an X-ray. We don’t want to do antibiotics.”’
Despite the Terblanche family’s belief, Sam’s autopsy report remained inconclusive regarding sepsis. The New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner cited ‘pulmonary hemorrhage of unknown etiology’ as the primary cause of death, indicating massive lung bleeding without a discernible reason. A blood culture from his second ER visit yielded no growth, suggesting any dangerous infection wasn’t yet detectable. Post-mortem examination revealed an enlarged heart and liver, a congested spleen, and kidney tissue damage. Sam’s toxicology screen was negative.
David Strayer, a renowned autopsy pathologist and co-editor of ‘Rubin’s Pathology’ (and father of ER doctor Reuben Strayer), reviewed Sam’s medical records. While he didn’t examine the pathology slides, he found sepsis an unlikely cause of death. He suggested Sam might have been a ‘zebra’ – a rare patient with an unusual diagnosis like an autoimmune disease, a clotting disorder, or an extreme reaction to something he consumed. A subsequent autopsy by the Cleveland Clinic proposed multisystem inflammatory syndrome linked to a prior COVID-19 infection, despite Sam testing negative at the hospital.
Overall, Sam’s lab values were significantly abnormal. His platelets, red blood cells, and hemoglobin were all low. As Strayer noted, ‘He’s a 20-year-old guy. His red blood counts should not be low. He doesn’t have a monthly period. He doesn’t have a gaping wound.’ Additionally, his sodium was low, glucose was high, and creatinine (a kidney function marker) was ‘within normal limits’ but unusually high for his age. His urinalysis also revealed blood and elevated white cells.
Strayer concluded that Sam’s lab results ‘do indicate that something serious is going on there. And it’s not at all clear what it is.’
This raises a crucial question: How can emergency doctors effectively manage such complex cases in high-volume, fast-paced environments? Should they be expected to monitor puzzling blood results over several days, or call patients post-discharge? The harsh reality of hospital overcrowding often makes physicians hesitant to push for admission unless the need is undeniably clear.
Maria Raven of UCSF noted that ER doctors can mandate follow-up with a primary care physician, or sometimes hold a patient for observation and re-evaluation of concerning values. However, Dr. Agyare testified that at Mount Sinai Morningside’s pediatric ER, where Sam was treated, doctors lack this flexibility. They are forced to make an immediate decision: ‘Either coming into the hospital or being discharged.’
Image Gallery: The Terblanche home is filled with poignant reminders of Sam, including his favorite teddy bear, a portrait, his jacket, and a self-portrait he created.
Reflecting on the nature of her profession, Maria Raven paused. ‘I think about this a lot,’ she shared. ‘Like, our job is kind of perilous. I think we all try to put it out of our minds when we go into a shift every day, but bad things can happen. And it’s on you to be extremely vigilant. And to some extent lucky, honestly.’
The Onset of Delirium and Final Days
Around 10:30 p.m., following the shift change, resident Neil Makhijani took over Sam’s care from Banerjee. Sam, accompanied by his friend Charlie Sagner, reportedly ‘felt better,’ as noted in Makhijani’s chart. After discussing his lab results, Sam, feeling reassured, texted his parents: ‘Tested normal on all blood stuff.’
Sam expressed his readiness to go home to Makhijani, with Charlie observing, ‘I think he was, just kind of like, ‘Get me out of here.’ There weren’t any obvious signs that he still, like, wasn’t right.’ Makhijani ordered a second liter of IV fluids and proceeded with discharge, reiterating the diagnosis of ‘acute viral syndrome.’
The discharge instructions advised Sam to return immediately if symptoms worsened or persisted, and to follow up with a primary care physician. Despite his persistently high heart rate, Sam was now able to retain food and drink. Makhijani provided a note excusing him from school until Wednesday, along with a copy of his lab results, which Sam meticulously stacked on his desk.
Dr. Courtney Mangus, an emergency physician at the University of Michigan, stressed the importance of physicians being transparent with patients about diagnostic uncertainties. She explained that such honesty can empower patients to overcome any ‘sheepish’ feelings about returning to the ER if symptoms continue.
Text messages between Sam and his friend, Charlie:
- Sam: ‘Im feeling like ass but surviving’
- Charlie: ‘Okay I’m still working on campus but Imk if you want me to pick up anything’
- Charlie: ‘How you feeling td’
- Charlie: ‘Also how was star wars’
As he left the hospital, Sam messaged his friends, expressing disbelief: ‘I cant believe i still just have a virus. How anticlimatic. I really thought i was dying.’
Later that evening, he optimistically texted Kayla: ‘First thing im havign when i can eat again is chick fil a.’
This sequence of events deeply haunts Sam’s family and friends. He sought emergency care twice, each time feeling progressively worse, yet was repeatedly told it was ‘just a virus.’ Everyone, including Sam, believed this diagnosis. Charlie, who accompanied Sam, recalled, ‘I went with Sam to the hospital and they said it was fine, So I didn’t have much reason to doubt what was going on because I trusted the hospital to do its job.’ In his final days, Sam conscientiously quarantined, worried about infecting his friends.
On Tuesday, Sam felt a slight improvement and texted his parents to ask for food recommendations.
‘Plain bagels,’ his father suggested.
‘Chicken is really good,’ his mother chimed in.
However, delirium tragically set in that Tuesday afternoon. Around 7 p.m., Sam texted Kayla: ‘I miss human society. I convincrd myself i was tue head of the vikings. I need to stop making religions. I convince myself I have a following All under the covers with me.’
‘LMAO,’ Kayla replied, followed by, ‘hang in there pls.’
On Wednesday, his parents checked in again, with his father inquiring about ‘the patient’ and reminding Sam to wish Ben a happy birthday. Kayla, growing anxious from his lack of contact, began sending Sam cartoon animals with heart-shaped eyes, urging him to stay in touch more frequently.
‘I will check innmore,’ he promised. ‘I promise.’
‘When is this gonna end?’ she asked, desperately.
‘Will talk when I’m up again,’ Sam replied. ‘Idek.’
By Thursday morning, Sam’s silence prompted Kayla to call Charlie, who then alerted campus security.
The legal depositions for Terblanche v. Mount Sinai Morningside commenced in January 2025. Villiers consistently attended, harboring a perhaps naive hope that someone would set aside their defensiveness and accept accountability for Sam’s fate. However, the Mount Sinai Morningside doctors, clearly well-prepared, offered only cautious and unembellished responses.
These sessions proved so agonizing for Villiers that he often took the following day off, embarking on 60- to 70-mile bike rides, which he dubbed his ‘antidepressant bike rides.’
For Louise, the legal proceedings were equally heartbreaking. Each deposition, meticulously relayed by her husband, brought back vivid memories: standing in Sam’s dorm room, clutching his pillow, as his friends tearfully removed his posters. Bit by bit, the fragmented picture of Sam’s last week tragically came into focus.
‘The fact that we all just think it was preventable is just horrendous,’ she confided. ‘And then also, I mean, I don’t think we’ll ever know what he died of. We don’t know what the infection was. Maybe it was something horrible and maybe he would have died anyway. But the fact that he died alone without help. That, for me, is hard.’
Louise, missing her community in Abu Dhabi, found solace in gardening in Croton. ‘I couldn’t stop planting,’ she said, hoping a thriving bee colony would serve as a fitting tribute to Sam, her environmentalist son. As depositions continue through autumn 2025, Villiers plans to leave Latham & Watkins. He seeks a new career path honoring Sam’s memory, potentially in sepsis awareness and patient safety, or perhaps teaching law ‘at some leafy college.’ Sam’s death prompted an earlier retirement, his life irrevocably altered.
Image: The Terblanche family at home. Louise expressed, ‘The fact that we all just think it was preventable is just horrendous.’
Image: A heartwarming family portrait.
In August, Ben Terblanche began college, eager, as he told me last spring, ‘to find out who I am now, to have conversations and think about things other than this.’ Sam’s death had profoundly impacted him, and the fresh start in a new city offered a glimmer of hope and possibility, particularly since he had ‘talked to him about everything.’
Then, in September, almost two years to the day after Sam’s passing, Ben fell ill. His parents urged him to visit student health services, where he was diagnosed with strep throat and prescribed antibiotics. However, his condition worsened, as Villiers recounted: ‘he kept on getting worse, and so he went back. And they looked at him again and said ‘OK, this is more serious.’’
Student health then directed him to the local large urban Emergency Room.
Fortunately, Ben recovered. The ER staff were adept and efficient, draining a tonsil abscess before sending him home. Yet, during his treatment, Ben sent his parents a selfie – lying on a gurney, connected to tubes and machines – an unsettling mirror image of a photo Sam had sent two years prior. Villiers admitted, ‘We both went into almost a panic. This is irrational and paranoid. I’m just telling you how I felt. Goodness, we cannot — something cannot — happen to the other child.’