A TEENAGE girl has been paralysed after catching the flu – which left her in a coma after having a stroke.
Lexi Brown, who was 14 at the time, was sick at home when she frantically called her mum saying that she could not move her arm.
Sign up for the Health newsletter
Thank you!
Lexi Brown fell into a coma and was paralysed after catching the flu in December 2025 Credit: SWNS
Paramedics were rushed to the house after she called her mum about not feeling her arm Credit: SWNS
By the time emergency services arrived, the teen from Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, had stopped breathing due to a spinal stroke that left her in a five day induced coma.
Lexi’s mum, Stacy Grantham, said: “She phoned me, screaming in pain.
“You know when you hear a certain scream, and you just know it’s something serious? It was that.
“She was so healthy and active, a really passionate singer and she loved theatre.
MY HELL
I was stressed mum living on Red Bull & given year to live after gargling in bed
BLINDING PAIN
I was slurring words & paralysed on my right side – at 14 docs blamed booze
The teen, who was 14 at the time, fell into a five-day coma Credit: SWNS
Her family are now fundraising money to get Lexi physio and other needs to get the teen better Credit: SWNS
“She says to me ‘everything I love, I’ve now lost.’ She can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel.
“It’s something no mum ever wants to see or hear, but we’re trying to stay positive for her.”
Before the harrowing event, Lexi had spent a couple of days out of school bedridden from a temperature and dizzy spells induced by a flu.
Thinking that she would get better to go back to school, she suddenly had a stroke on December 16.
She had stopped breathing and needed CPR by paramedics before being rushed to the hospital.
Lexi was put into a ‘neuroprotective’ coma at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, until medics could figure out what was wrong with her.
After waking up from the five-day induced coma, she was unable to walk, talk or breathe unaided.
The incident was a devastating blow to the former theatre performer.
Lexi has since been in hospital, using a ventilator to breathe and talk, and has to be pushed around in a wheelchair.
The cause of the spinal stroke remains a mystery, but may have been triggered by the flu Lexi caught earlier in the month.
Stacy, 33, said with lots of hard work, physio and occupational therapy, she may regain some muscle functions over time.
She added: “You picture a stroke as an older person, you don’t think it can happen to a healthy 14 year old.
“They never found a cause – the only thing they can go on is that she had the flu, but she had no underlying conditions.
“When she woke, she was paralysed from the neck down and we were told she’d have no movement again, and be ventilated for the rest of her life.”
Lexi, who is now 15, is currently going through intensive physiotherapy in the hopes that her muscle strength might be regained.
She can talk through a tracheostomy tube and uses a ventilator to breathe at night, but is now growing strong enough to breathe for herself during the day.
She has regained some movement in her limbs but is unable to use them for “functional things” such as feeding herself and pushing her own wheelchair.
Stacy said: “She can now talk as she would before, but her voice is huskier and she has an uncomfortable tube in her neck.
“She was an avid singer and her voice has been taken away, that’s been devastating for her.”
The family have seen positive signs that over time, Lexi will be able to regain movement as the muscles ‘wake back up’ with strength training and rehabilitation.
Stacy said: “It’s so difficult, because the progress is so small. She sat up by herself for 30 seconds the other day, which is huge because we were told she wouldn’t be able to do that.”
She is regularly visited by mum Stacy, dad Craig Brown, 37, step mum Lou Baird-Brown, 33, and brothers Jake Brown, 12, and Theo Brown, one, to keep spirits high.
But Lexi is unable to return to her family home as the property is rented so they are unable to make wheelchair-friendly adaptations.
The family have had to join the local council housing register so they can stay somewhere suitable for Lexi when she can be discharged into the community, with support from carers.
They are now fundraising to help with the costs of travel, private physio and other needs when Lexi is discharged.
Stacy said: “I don’t think there is anything that could have been done for Lexi – there were no warning signs.
“It’s what we do now, how everyone is coming together to support Lexi.
“It’s not over anytime soon and we’re living in a state of survival – it’s a confronting thing, but we’re trying to stay positive.
“But I’ll forever tell people that Lexi was home alone, and saved her own life by calling me for help. She wouldn’t be here today otherwise.”
