{"id":27832,"date":"2025-07-28T03:57:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T03:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/27832\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T03:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T03:57:11","slug":"british-mother-who-died-of-rabies-from-puppy-scratch-on-holiday-had-horrendous-death-daughter-reveals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/27832\/","title":{"rendered":"British mother who died of rabies from puppy scratch on holiday had ‘horrendous’ death, daughter reveals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The daughter of a British woman who died of rabies after she was scratched by a puppy<\/a>\u00a0on holiday has spoken of her mother’s ‘horrendous’ death.<\/p>\n

Yvonne Ford, 59, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, was scratched on the leg by a small stray puppy lying under her sunbed while on holiday in Morocco with her husband in February – but thought nothing of it at the time.<\/p>\n

Many months later, the grandmother-of-four started suffering from a ‘horrendous’ headache and was admitted to Barnsley Hospital.<\/p>\n

Within days, she could not walk, talk, sleep or swallow. She started hallucinating, and developed a fear of water.<\/p>\n

Yvonne was transferred to Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield where she was eventually diagnosed with the rare but devastating virus. She died on June 11.<\/p>\n

Her daughter Robyn Thomson, 32, has spoken of how the deathly disease that stole her mother.<\/p>\n

Neonatal nurse Robyn said: ‘[Mum] was the most loving person imaginable. She had the biggest heart.<\/p>\n

‘She was my best friend and the most fantastic grandparent to mine and my brother’s children.<\/p>\n

\"Yvonne <\/p>\n

Yvonne Ford, 59, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, was scratched on the leg by a small stray puppy lying under her sunbed while on holiday in Morocco with her husband in February – but thought nothing of it at the time<\/p>\n

\"Her <\/p>\n

Her daughter Robyn Thomson, 32, (left) has spoken of how the deathly disease that stole her mother<\/p>\n

\"Yvonne <\/p>\n

Yvonne Ford on holiday with husband Ron (right), daughter Robyn, Robyn’s husband Andrew (left) and their children<\/p>\n

‘She was a huge animal lover so for her to have died of rabies – it is just particularly horrendous.<\/p>\n

‘She will be missed so dearly.’<\/p>\n

Robyn said her mother’s death was a huge shock to the whole family – especially as it took so long for her to develop symptoms. She was scratched in February – and died four months later.<\/p>\n

She said: ‘She and dad were on a holiday in Morocco and they were on a private beach next to the hotel.<\/p>\n

‘There was a puppy underneath mum’s sunbed and it scratched her leg.<\/p>\n

‘There was no blood and no evidence of the dog being unwell. It was such a mild scratch and it never got infected so we just thought nothing of it at the time.<\/p>\n

‘Mum came home and everything was normal. We went to Florida as a family and she went fishing with my dad.<\/p>\n

‘But in June she came down with this horrendous headache. She was in a lot of pain so went to hospital.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The grandmother-of-four started suffering from a ‘horrendous’ headache and was admitted to Barnsley Hospital<\/p>\n

\"Within <\/p>\n

Within days, she could not walk, talk, sleep or swallow. She started hallucinating, and developed a fear of water<\/p>\n

\"Robyn <\/p>\n

Robyn said her mother’s death was a huge shock to the whole family – especially as it took so long for her to develop symptoms<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The family later found out that it normally takes a few months for rabies symptoms to show – but the deadly disease can incubate for up to two years<\/p>\n

‘Soon, she couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t walk, she couldn’t talk. She was hallucinating and had a fear of water.<\/p>\n

‘She couldn’t swallow. She was choking on her own saliva. So doctors put her in an induced coma.<\/p>\n

‘It wasn’t until over a week later that she was diagnosed with rabies.<\/p>\n

‘There’s only one outcome for rabies once symptoms develop and it’s death every time. So we had to turn off her life support.’<\/p>\n

The family later found out that it normally takes a few months for rabies symptoms to show – but the deadly disease can incubate for up to two years.<\/p>\n

Now, Robyn wants to spread awareness for rabies – and help stop it at the source via a charity mission in Cambodia.<\/p>\n

The mother-of-two has launched a GoFundMe<\/a> and is appealing for help from the public.<\/p>\n

She said: ‘This is something I need to do. If I can save even one life through this work, or spare one family from going through the pain we have experienced, then it will be turning a terrible negative into something positive.<\/p>\n

‘I’m determined to transform my grief into action – helping vaccinate dogs, support surveillance efforts, and deliver life-saving lessons in schools.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The daughter of a British woman who died of rabies after she was scratched by a puppy\u00a0on holiday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[97,2841,59,102,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-27832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-gb","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}