Sheffield girl still unable to walk nine months after being stung by fish in Cornwall

A schoolgirl from Sheffield has been left unable to walk, after she was stung by a fish while playing in the sea on a family holiday.

Evie Austin, now 12, developed complex regional pain syndrome after she was stung on her left foot while learning to body-board on a family holiday in Perranporth, Cornwall, in August last year.

She now has to take a range of drugs every day, including morphine, tramadol and ketamine for pain.

Evie can only attend school for four hours a week and, unable to bear any weight on her leg, she has to use a wheelchair to get around.

Her mum, Jane, said: "We just thought that one day it would start improving and the swelling would go down and the redness would go.

"That just never happened. One week spilled into a month and then two months and before we knew it, we had a child that wasn't mobile and she had to start secondary school in a wheelchair."

Jane added: "Usually a weever fish sting is painful but quite minor. There was a girl stood next to Evie who had been stung the day before, but was back in the water the next day.

"We couldn't understand how Evie was still so bad. She was just very unlucky."

In October Evie was officially diagnosed with chronic regional pain syndrome.The family are trying to keep life as normal as possible for Evie and are hopeful that one day she will go into remission.

She said: "We do try to keep things as normal as possible. She does manage to hop around her room on one foot, balancing on bits of furniture to tidy her room.

"She loves baking and craft and we still try to do things like that. Now we have realised that this isn't going to go in a few weeks, we have started working to just make life as normal as we can for her."

The family are also fundraising in Evie's name for Sheffield Children's Hospital.