A 4-year-old boy named Jaxon Knowles passed away just one day after telling his mom that his armpit hurt, turning what was supposed to be a fun family getaway into an unimaginable tragedy.
Jaxon’s parents, Sammy and Jordan Knowles, had taken him on a quick trip to Blackpool, excited to make some happy memories. They got home on Sunday, February 16, and that’s when things started going wrong. Jaxon mentioned pain under his arm, then dozed off for a bit. When he woke up, he said his stomach was hurting too, Sammy told Yorkshire Live.
That night, like he always did when he felt off, Jaxon wanted to sleep in his mom’s bed. Sammy gave him a small dose of paracetamol for his fever—she said it usually helped with his regular chest infections. But early the next morning, around 5 a.m., she woke up and checked on him with her phone’s flashlight. That’s when she spotted the rash.
“At first I thought it might be chickenpox,” Sammy said, her voice breaking as she remembered. “But when I turned on the light, I knew it was way worse.”
The rash spread fast, and Jaxon’s mouth and tongue began swelling. He started throwing up. They called 999 right away, and while waiting for the ambulance, he was struggling to breathe—they had to turn him on his side.
At the hospital, 15 doctors fought to save him. “They worked on him for hours, but he was crying blood,” Sammy said. She tried singing his favorite lullabies to calm him, but the doctors had to put him into a coma and move him to a children’s hospital.
Despite everything, Jaxon’s heart stopped. They got it going again briefly, but he passed away that Monday morning, February 17.
“I still can’t believe it,” Sammy said through tears. “He was perfectly fine just hours earlier. No warning signs, nothing that screamed meningitis. It hit out of nowhere.”
Doctors later confirmed it was meningococcal disease—a brutal type of bacterial meningitis that hits young kids hardest.
“He was our miracle,” Sammy shared. After seven years of trying, multiple IVF rounds, and three miscarriages, Jaxon was their everything—their last chance that finally worked.
Now, through their pain, Sammy and Jordan are trying to warn other parents. “If this saves even one family, it’ll mean the world,” Jordan said, fighting back tears.
In the U.S., bacterial meningitis strikes about 3,000 people a year—one in every 100,000—and up to 10% don’t make it. It’s toughest on babies and little kids. It often starts with stuff like fever or headache that could be anything, which makes it sneaky. Then come the telltale signs: bad headaches, stiff neck (especially when trying to touch chin to chest), sensitivity to light. It can spiral fast into confusion, sleepiness, seizures, or worse—some people are out of it by the time they get help.
The family set up a donation page for Meningitis Now, a group that helps others going through this. “There wasn’t a vaccine Jaxon could have gotten,” Jordan told the BBC. “Maybe with more research and funding, that changes someday.”
Jaxon was a huge Sheffield Wednesday fan, so the club is honoring him with a four-minute applause during their game against Sunderland—fans are encouraged to join in.
Sammy and Jordan are left with an emptiness that’s hard to put into words. “He was our whole world,” Sammy said. “The house feels so quiet now. Everything does. We’ve got nothing left.”