Elia was at a ski camp in Davos with his school class from 20.03.-23.03.23. On March 21, he celebrated his 14th birthday with his classmates at the ski camp. Because we couldn’t celebrate his birthday with him, we sent him a special cake. Everything went very smoothly and without incident. When the class returned on 23.03.23, I noticed that Elia had a slight cough, at the time I didn't think anything of it. The next day I took him to his training in Italy for the Swiss karting championship. Elia was one of Switzerland's greatest young talents and two-time runner-up.
While doing his laps, he occasionally mentioned having trouble swallowing. Because of this, he took a painkiller, which helped him a lot. That evening, we returned home.
On Saturday, Elia developed a fever between 38.1 and 38.5°C. I gave him a painkiller to ease both the fever and his difficulty swallowing. In the afternoon, he told me he wanted to go to Wohlen to see the new surface of his home track. Since he no longer had a fever, I agreed. It was raining, so I told him I would wait in the car. He got out, walked the track, and came back excited, raving: "Mum, the track is going to be fast! I can hardly wait to do my first laps!"
We returned home. On Sunday, we celebrated Elia's birthday with family and took photos with everyone. Looking at the photos, it's impossible to imagine the tragedy that happened less than 24 hours later.
On the night of March 26, 2023, to March 27, 2023, I woke up to Elia's severe coughing fits and went to check on him. At this point, he had developed a fever of over 39 degrees and I thought to myself that he must have caught the flu. I told him that he would probably have to stay home, but that we would check again in the morning before school started.
The next morning, his temperature was still high, and he had severe aching limbs. Again, I assumed it was the flu and gave him antipyretic and pain-relieving medication. He stayed in bed while I worked from home.
Once the medication started to take effect, Elia took a lukewarm shower. But shortly afterward, just before noon, he suddenly began crying in pain, his breathing loud and noticeably strained. When he lay at my feet, crying and begging me to take him to a doctor, I became worried. Since the pediatrician was ill and my family doctor couldn’t see him until the evening, we had no choice but to go to the hospital in Baden.
Once there, I had to take Elia to the pediatric emergency department in a wheelchair as he was in pain and could neither walk nor talk. We weren’t exactly welcomed warmly; instead, I was treated as if I had brought him in for nothing more than a simple fever. In the treatment room, Elia was given medication for his fever and pain, and we were told to wait for it to take effect. At first, he felt better, but then, all of a sudden, he told me his pain was a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10. I rang the bell, but it took another half an hour before both the assistant and senior doctor finally entered the room.
Previously, Elia had only been examined by the assistant doctor, who told me that Elia's pain, which radiated into his abdomen, was typical in children with pneumonia.
At this point, Elia was too cramped with pain for further examinations. The senior doctor, who hadn't even examined Elia, told me that his blood had been diagnosed with influenza B and that his chest and back pain was muscle pain that came as a result of the coughing. (But Elia didn't even cough in hospital). They sent us home and told us that if his condition didn't improve, I was to give him Novalgin in addition to other medication. Before the very eyes of the two doctors, I took my very sick son, put him in a wheelchair, and left the hospital. Neither of the doctors thought this was unusual.
As his condition made it impossible for him to walk himself, I had to get our car from the parking garage and drive to the emergency entrance to pick him up. We drove home with the diagnosis of influenza B.
At that moment I trusted the doctors, in hindsight a fatal mistake for which I hate myself all over again.
We returned home around 5 p.m. on March 27, 2023. At around 6:30-7 pm, Elia was sitting at the dining table with his father while I was in the kitchen. My husband asked me to come in for a moment because Elia had blood in his mouth. At first, I thought he had torn his lips, as he was constantly breathing through his mouth. I wiped his lips, applied ointment to his lips, and went back into the kitchen. My husband called me back again as the blood in his mouth was back. I thought the bleeding was caused by his braces.
He rinsed his mouth with water, and I saw that the blood was accumulating in his mouth again. Elia went to lie down in his room and as he was coughing, he spat up a lot of blood. We immediately called the ambulance and took Elia to the sofa in the living room. When the paramedics examined him, it was immediately clear that something was wrong with his lungs. Elia's breathing sounded like you were blowing air into a glass of water with a straw. I was with him in the ambulance and he was immediately given oxygen and an infusion. We then went back to the hospital in Baden. There were about 10 people around my son in the pediatric emergency room, but it seemed as if no one knew exactly what was wrong with him or what to do. Suddenly we were told we had to go to the shock room in the emergency ward.
The chaos only continued from here on. Elia continued to spit blood while fully conscious and angrily asked: “How much longer? When do I get to go home?!” I had no other chance to stand in a corner holding his jacket in my hand and to watch and observe...
My husband said to Elia, “Don't worry, everything will be fine! Are you scared?” To which Elia's last words in life were, “Yes, Daddy, I'm scared!”
Shortly after, we received the news that we had to take a helicopter to the children's hospital in Zurich immediately. At that moment I realized that it was life-threatening if the helicopter had to come. But there were no helicopters available and we would have to go by ambulance. So that's what we did. When we arrived about 20 minutes later and they took Elia out on the stretcher, it was the last time I saw my son half-conscious.
They rushed him into the shock room, and the last thing I heard was someone shouting, “Cut his pants open!” A nurse quickly approached us, explaining that Elia was being resuscitated and urging us to follow her to the waiting room. There was nothing we could do but sit and wait, consumed by fear and uncertainty. We had no idea what was happening to our child—whether he was stable, critical, or even still alive. Eventually, we were told that Elia had been resuscitated multiple times and that his only hope was the ECMO machine, a device that takes over the functions of the heart and lungs. At that moment, the only thing that mattered to us was that he had survived. Before he was transferred to the intensive care unit, we were allowed to see him briefly in his room. This site is etched in my memory. I no longer recognized my child. He was wired up with over 20 infusions and had spots everywhere due to the sepsis and blood clotting. I didn't dare touch him at all. He was then transferred to the intensive care unit. On March 28, 2023, we were finally informed of Elia's diagnosis.
He suffered a septic shock due to a superinfection caused by influenza B. Bacterial pneumonia was also diagnosed on the evening of March 27, 2023. The doctors told us that there was nothing more they could do for him at that moment, even though they were in constant communication with other countries. They told us that Elia was the sickest child in the whole of Switzerland. We stayed with Elia the whole day, talking to him and showing him videos of his kart races, to which he even reacted to with his pulse. This gave us, the parents, a brief moment of hope. The next morning, we were called into a room where three doctors and a counselor were already waiting for us. We were told that the sepsis had already destroyed both of Elia's legs and that they would have to be amputated in order to save him. However, in order to carry out the operation, his condition would have to become more stable and the next 24 hours would have to show that. We were devastated... My mind was racing with thoughts, each piece of news worse than the last. There was no time to process even one of them. I knew that in that moment, it no longer mattered what I wanted—only what was best for our son. The amputation of both legs and possibly his hands—how could a teenager cope with that?
Both were his tools in sports—everything he relied on would be gone. On top of that, we didn’t know whether he had suffered any damage from the resuscitation. My last thought that evening was of my son. I said to him: "Elia, I understand if you want to let go. It’s okay." For some reason, after that, I fell asleep.
On March 30, 2023, we received the worst news any parent could ever hear: Our son was going to die. There was nothing more they could do for him, as his condition had not improved.
As parents, we were paralyzed. I couldn’t even cry properly—there are no words to describe it. It’s a feeling of complete helplessness, nausea, and total collapse.
On March 31, 2023, just ten days after his 14th birthday and on the opening day of the Swiss Kart Championship, our beloved son Elia passed away at 9:15 AM, with us by his side.
