Parents of Xynthia Hawke speak out after trial in France hears how anaesthetist botched ventilation during caesarean
Hanging in Clare and Fraser Hawke’s Somerset home is a photo of a group of people standing outside, eyes closed and faces tilted to the sun.
“Every time I look at it, I think of Xynthia,” says Clare. “She loved the sun, the sunset, the colours. She loved nature and being outdoors. Just before she was due to give birth, we went into the tiny hospital courtyard and stood like this, our faces to the sun.” It is one of the last memories Clare has of her daughter. Shortly after this brief sunny interlude in 2014, Xynthia, 28, was on life support in an irreversible coma. She would never see her baby boy, delivered by emergency caesarean.