Tragic little girl loses all her limbs

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Bella Tucker

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On Sunday, April 4 eight-year-old Bella Tucker was running around her aunt’s garden and grabbing all the hidden Easter eggs she could find before her brothers and sister could get to them.

Three weeks later little Bella Tucker had her arms and legs removed in a quadruple amputation after a vicious infection rapidly spread throughout her fragile body.

On Easter Sunday Bella and her four siblings took advantage of the beautiful weather and spent most of the afternoon outdoors hunting for Easter eggs and having lots of fun.

After an hour or so of giggles Bella began to feel sick. She asked her mom Selena Roarty could she go inside the house.

This was very unlike Bella -- she was always so active and full of fun.

“We couldn’t figure out why Bella wanted to go inside. It was such a beautiful day and not like her to do so,” said Peter Roarty, Bella’s stepdad who lives in Londonderry, New Hampshire with his wife Selena and the five children.

Peter’s parents, John and Bridge Roarty, are very active in the Irish American Center in Mineola, Long Island.

Bella crawled onto the couch and spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping it off.

“We came back to the house in Londonderry and Bella still wasn’t feeling any better. The symptoms she was showing were that of the flu,” recalled Roarty, a flight attendant with Jet Blue.

As the night progressed Bella’s fever got worse, and a dose of Tylenol wasn’t taking it away.

“She complained of being thirsty a lot of the time but it wasn’t until she said her feet were cold that I realized something was seriously wrong,” recalls Roarty.

After wrapping Bella’s feet in a blanket, Roarty felt her hands and was very surprised to realize they too were cold.

Roarty, whose parents hail from Co. Donegal, immediately took Bella straight to the Parkland Medical Center in Londonderry.  Doctors immediately suspected meningitis.

“Bella started turning purple almost immediately, and that really worried us,” said Roarty, who was dating Selena for seven years before they tied the knot earlier this year.

Bella was immediately transferred via helicopter to the Children’s Hospital in Boston.

“We realized the extent of the seriousness at this point,” recalls Roarty sadly.

Doctors at the hospital spent the next several hours trying to save Bella’s life.

“They were amazing there,” said Roarty. “They were focusing on saving her life organs like her heart, liver and lungs and they did.”

Doctors gave little hope for this third grader’s survival, but after five days in a coma she miraculously pulled through.

Bella spent another seven days on a life support machine.

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