Schoolgirl, 6, horrifically burnt at family barbecue loses fight for life

Little Shannon Davies suffered horrific burns more than a month ago and her family had been looking forward to her coming out of hospital.

Hours before her death the girl had been chatting to mum Suzanne and step-dad Glyn Gaskell from her intensive care bed asking when she could come home. 

Real girly girl: Little Shannon Davies who died a month after suffering horrific burns

But in the middle of the night the parents received a phone call to say Shannon had suffered two heart attacks.

By the time their taxi had brought them to Manchester's Booth Hall Hospital it was already too late. 

Glyn said: 'We are in pieces. We knew she was still on the critical list and they had pre-warned us that she was not in the clear and there could be set-backs, but we thought she was doing OK.

'It was a question of the grafts taking. We had been to see her every day and on Sunday she was talking to us and saying she wanted to come home.'

Grief-stricken: Shannon's family are coming to terms with her death

She explained Shannon had been driving nurses crazy watching High School Musical and Dirty Dancing over and over again. 

'It was going to be months before the doctors even contemplated her coming out, but we were looking forward to it,' she continued.

'Then we got a phone call at about 3.45am from the hospital saying she was not so good. We got a taxi straight away but she had passed away by the time we got there. 

'From what they said she had had a couple of cardiac arrests and she was just not able to fight it. 

'Our world has fallen apart. Suzanne has had to take a sleeping pill to try to get rest.'

Glyn described Shannon as a 'bubbly person, a Frilly Milly, a real girly girl'.  The accident happened on the evening of Friday June 20 when Shannon was with her grandad Thomas Spoors at his friend David Barker's home in Platt Bridge, Wigan

She had been asking her grandad about having a barbecue for several weeks and because that evening the weather was reasonable he decided to set one up in the backyard.

But in the moments it took him to go inside to fetch the food, Shannon got too near to the heat and her nylon dress caught light. 

She was instantly engulfed in flames and 56-year-old Mr Spoors had to put them out using panfuls of cold water and by emersing her in a bath.

She suffered 60 per cent burns, the most serious to her legs, arms and lower body. 

Mr Spoors himself suffered bad burns to his hands and was said by Mr Barker to beside himself with grief and guilt.

His family say they don't hold him responsible for what was a tragic accident. 

In the following weeks the St Catherine's Primary School pupil had been treated at both Manchester Children's Hospital, Pendlebury, and Booth Hall, Manchester, where she was kept on a ventilator and given several skin grafts. 

A post-mortem examination was due to take place this week and funeral arrangements have yet to be made.