The father of a Lower Hutt teenager who died in hospital with flu symptoms says she had only been unwell for a few days. Shayne Iti said his 15-year-old daughter Katie Margaret Iti died on Saturday in Hutt Hospital from complications of influenza B. “She fell ill probably Tuesday last week and just was getting slightly worse over the few days – we were just monitoring her at home,” he said.
“And then I woke up early Saturday morning to hear her moaning and groaning and I was like ‘I can’t see my baby like this anymore, let’s go to the hospital’.” Iti said Katie was seen by a cardiologist and a surgeon, and tests found fluid around her heart. He thought she appeared to improve over the day and another scan confirmed the fluid had not increased.
But 13 hours after her arrival, Katie suddenly deteriorated and her heart stopped, Iti said. “She was gone. I was with her right up until the end.
” Iti said Katie’s passion was drag racing and she had completed her first season of racing her own car. She became interested in the motorsport after she and Iti began helping his boss build a drag racing car. After that Katie was hooked, going to “the drags” as often as she could, an enthusiasm also supported by mum Jamie Halse.
“She started getting quite friendly with all the junior drag racers because it’s quite big – the scene,” Iti said. “She always wanted her own car and started jumping into people’s cars and sitting in them and dreaming about hav.
