Andrew ‘Cosi’ Costello’s step-son Harry survives frightening surgery ordeal

When Sam Costello dropped her son off at Burnside Hospital for routine surgery, she was sure everything was going to be fine.

In early April, Sam Costello dropped her 22-year-old son Harry off at Burnside Hospital for a routine shoulder reconstruction.

She returned home to find herself in lockdown after her husband, media personality Andrew “Cosi” Costello, tested positive to Covid.

It was the start of the most challenging day of her life during which she faced every mother’s worst nightmare.

Harry, who is Sam’s son from a previous relationship and now working in the UK, was suddenly fighting for his life and she and Cosi, unable to rush to his side, were helpless.

If not for all the stars aligning, it could well have ended in tragedy.

She tells her story to Anna Vlach.

Costello Family Harry, Samantha, Matilda, Charli-Rose and Andrew Costello Picture: Supplied

Harry messaged me at about 11.45am and said “Yep, they are taking me down” and I said “OK, good luck” and we didn’t think anything of it.

It was around 1.30pm and I became really unsettled, I just couldn’t relax.

I said to Cosi “I should be hearing from him any minute” and he said “Oh hun, don’t worry about it, he’ll be fine. They’ve told you they’ll ring you as soon as he comes to recovery”.

I knew that the procedure was probably going to take longer (because the damage, sustained while skiing and from repeated injuries on the football field, was quite severe), but I was just really unsettled and so I rang them and was told “We will ring you as soon as he gets here, or, if you want, you can ring in half an hour”.

It was 2 o’clock and, again, I just couldn’t settle, there was nothing that I could do to relax, so I rang them again and they said he wasn’t there.

They said they would ring through to the surgeon and just see how everything was going.

About 15 minutes later my phone rang and I just assumed it was going to be the nurse and when I answered the phone it was the surgeon. I just thought that he was ringing me to tell me everything was fine.

Harry Costello. Picture: Supplied

He asked “Was I by myself?” which I thought was a weird thing to ask and he told me things had gone terribly wrong. Harry had suffered a reaction to the anaesthetic and they were doing everything they could to save his life.

What was a routine procedure had gone terribly wrong.

He asked if there had been any history in the family of anybody reacting to any anaesthetics … and there was no history. They believed he had suffered malignant hyperthermia, which is a reaction to the gas (in the anaesthetic).

He felt confident that he could finish the procedure and they were doing everything they could to stabilise Harry.

They put Harry into an ice bath because his temperature had risen a degree-and-a-half very quickly.

The reason why alarm bells went for them is that Harry started moving his legs and then he started moving his arms and they realised something was going horribly wrong and his temperature had started to rise. All of the team reacted within minutes and suspected he had malignant hyperthermia.

That day was a terrible day for (ambulance) ramping. At all of the major hospitals there were many ambulances ramped.

But Harry had an angel that day because the critical care team from the Royal Adelaide Hospital were actually on the road; they were on Greenhill Rd and they got to Harry within minutes. They believed the anaesthetist and surgeon had diagnosed Harry correctly, so they gave Harry a drug that Burnside Hospital hasn’t used for 10 years, that is only ever used for malignant hyperthermia.

They had administered the drug within 10 minutes. They happened to have the drug at Burnside, they happened to have bags and bags of ice at the hospital as well, which they don’t normally have.

They were running through the wards to get all the ice out of the freezers, they also filled another ambulance with ice to bring more.

They put another bag of the drug from Lyell McEwin Hospital into an ambulance and administered that around the 20-minute mark, I think.

Harry Costello. Picture: Supplied

They ordered another bag of the drug to come from Melbourne and the surgeon managed to finish the procedure.

They kept Harry on ice for about six hours until they were completely confident the gas was completely out of his system. If his temp had risen he could have suffered brain damage or died. It was touch and go … it was actually go.

(Sam breaks down) My world just stopped. It was the loneliest I have ever felt. I ran down the side of my house. Cosi knew something had gone wrong. I told him they were doing everything they could to stabilise Harry, that he’d had a freak reaction. We then came up with a plan to not tell the girls (daughters Matilda, 13, and Charli-Rose, 14) to protect them until we knew what was going on.
The phone call with the surgeon probably lasted for about four minutes, but it seemed like a lifetime.

It was just lucky that at that time Harry reacted, the operating theatre next door had just finished (a surgery) and they had just scrubbed up. The anaesthetist was able to sit with Harry’s anaesthetist and be there for some moral support and the surgeon was able to be with Harry’s surgeon for moral support as well. They were all able to go in and all assist each other. So, again, all the moons aligned for Harry.

We were very fortunate that they actually had a bed at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Harry. It’s one of the best hospitals in the world to cope with that level of stress and it was the best place for him to be.

He had a bag of the lifesaving drug taped to the end of this bed and they moved him at about 7pm that night.

They put him in a coma straight away as soon as everything went pear-shaped. I was very worried about him being in a coma because you hear so many horrible stories about people never coming out of them. I thought, I dropped him off a perfectly fit and healthy person – what if he had brain damage for the rest of his life, what if he remained on a ventilator? It just seemed so crazy and it’s only now that I can actually get my head around what happened. I sat in my house and I just prayed, prayed to my dad that it wasn’t (Harry’s) time.

(Sam laughs through her tears) Harry has always caused me stress, no matter what. Even when he’s under general anaesthetic, he’s still causing me stress.

Every hour just seemed like a lifetime. I don’t think I had really started to think about what the long-term effects could be – it was just “keep him alive, keep him alive”.

The head of the critical care team told me Harry could possibly be on a ventilator for two to three days. There was no way they were going to take him out of the coma if they thought gas was still present and it could be 48 hours for them to know.

They said that I could ring back whenever I wanted. They were so lovely, they were just the kindest. They made me feel safe, that even though I wasn’t there, they were doing everything they could for him.

When I rang at about 11pm, I got a beautiful doctor. She said “We are so proud of Harry”. She got all of his obs (record of observations), looked at his history and saw that he was 22 and so fit and so healthy, and she thought she would bring Harry out of the coma slightly to see if he had suffered any brain damage.

I love this lady so much because I don’t know how I would have got through the night without her.

Harry Costello. Picture: Instagram

They partially brought Harry out of the coma and they told him what had happened and said “If you can hear us please wiggle your toes” and he did. Then she said “Harry, you’re at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, not Burnside, do you understand what I am saying? If you do, wiggle your fingers” and he did.

She put him back in his coma and said to me “I think he is going to be completely fine because he can understand me”.

I was able to sleep. I’ve been through so much tragedy. My uncle died at 31 from a heart attack in his sleep, my dad got pancreatic cancer and lived only three months. I’ve never been given a second chance in my life with anybody.

When they rang and said they were doing everything to save Harry I just thought “Here we go again”.

The doctor said “I am going to take him out of the coma in the morning” and I was just so thankful.

Next morning when I rang her it would have been about 10 past six.

She said “He’s awake, we are just so proud of him”.

They had taken him out of the coma about 15 minutes before I rang. We FaceTimed and his first words to me were “How did Charli-Rose go?”.

(Harry’s sister had an important dance competition which she was able to take part in because she was not a close contact to Cosi).

That just sums Harry up. We were like “Don't worry about Charli-Rose, how are you?” and he was like “I’m fine”.

Harry had no idea of what he had been through and actually said “Why did you tell me, because I wouldn’t have known?” and we said “What about the fact you were on a ventilator – isn’t that a dead giveaway?”.

If Harry had been anywhere else in the world at the time, the chances of them having that drug on site, of them diagnosing Harry within three to four minutes … we have the best medical team. I would love to thank them all.

Not only did they save Harry’s life, they possibly saved our lives as well because it is hereditary. The girls and I possibly have it. I am just so forever grateful.

Malignant hyperthermia is incredibly rare. Most surgeons and anaesthetists will never see it in their whole career, yet they train at med school for this day that they hope to never see and thank God they do.

* Because the testing for malignant hyperthermia is extremely invasive, Sam and her daughters have not been tested but are assumed to have it. Harry has tested positive. He may have inherited it from his biological father or Sam or himself have mutated the gene.