20 July 2020

Formula One grid girl Khloe Atkinson, 32, in coma as she awaits kidney transplant

A Formula One grid girl has been put in a coma as she awaits a kidney transplant following a 10-year battle with diabetes. 

Khloe Atkinson, 32, who is also a part-time model, lost her sight in one eye in February and soon after was told she had kidney failure. She was placed in an induced coma earlier this month.

She is being treated at Royal Stoke Hospital in Staffordshire, where is required to take 30 tablets a day and is on dialysis.

Atkinson worked on shows such as The Real Housewives of Cheshire and as a grid girl for Honda and Formula One.

Before her latest medical setback she told Stoke-on-Trent Live: "Diabetes is a silent killer and it kills your organs without you knowing. I put my contacts in one morning after going to the gym and my vision was blurred as if I was looking through frosted glass.

"I just presumed I'd put them in incorrectly so I went home to get my glasses and then when I put them on my sight didn't change. 

"After an emergency appointment I was diagnosed with Macular edema and now have no sight in my right eye and partial sight in my left.

"About a week later I went to the doctors because I had been experiencing intense headaches and nosebleeds.

“I went to the hospital and was diagnosed with kidney failure. My kidneys are now functioning at eight per cent and I've been put on dialysis until I can find a donor.”

She also added that she is ‘heartbroken’ she can’t go back to work and do what she loves most. 

Atkinson added: "I'm a part-time model and a grid girl and I love it, it's not like a job. You get to stand looking glamorous, but I don't feel like that now.

“It's heartbreaking, I've been a professional dancer since the age of 18 and appeared on different TV shows and now I've got a tube hanging out of my belly. It's frustrating because I've always worked.”

Her friends Kayleigh Fyfe and Charlie George have set up a GoFundMe page, which has so far raised over £6,300, to help pay for the equipment Atkinson will need at home.

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