Boy to never speak again' after drinking drain cleaner in supermarket while mum's back was turned

A mum fears her son may never speak again after he swallowed drain cleaner in a supermarket.

Saira Faisal says son Ayman grabbed the bottle from a shop shelf and drank the liquid, leaving him unable to speak or eat

The six-year-old was left with such severe burns that he now has to be fed through a tube in his stomach, though Saira knows he is lucky to be alive

Ayman was just two-and-a-half years old when his mum says he picked up the bottle from a shelf at SAFA Superstore

The youngster drank the liquid, which contained caustic soda, while his mum’s back was turned

The toxic substance caused severe burns to his mouth, airway, oesophagus and stomach and left him fighting for his life in intensive care

She said: “Ayman was strapped into his pushchair and I was reaching to get something. It was only for a few seconds, but when I turned back I saw his lips had gone purple and blue and there was blood coming out of his mouth.

I didn’t know what it was or what had happened at first, I just knew it was something bad. I remember screaming at the staff to phone an ambulance while I tried to get as much as I could out with my hands.

I was terrified. All I kept thinking was ‘please don’t let me lose my son.

 

 

Ayman was rushed to Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital where he spent a month in intensive care

He spent another five months on a general ward where doctors inserted a permanent tracheostomy tube into his neck so he can breathe. He also has a feeding tube in his stomach to enable him to eat

Saira, who also suffered burns to her hands and feet, said she was frightened to leave her son alone in hospital

“I couldn’t even hold him for the first few weeks and that broke my heart, but slowly he started to show signs of improvement, one tube came out and then another,” she said.

“Eventually he was moved to a general ward and I think it was only then that I started to believe he might survive.”

Saira has now launched legal action against the manufacturer, Active Brand Concepts Limited, and the owners of the Claremont Road shop SAFA Superstore, where the incident happened in January 2013

Lawyers say Ayman should not have been able to remove the cap of the bottle and say it should have been displayed on a shelf out of reach of children