A Mother’s Fight for Her Son After a Life-Threatening Medical Error
Michelle and Bojay Reedy’s three-year-old son, Hudson, was a vibrant and energetic child who loved playing outside and being a big brother to his younger sibling, Henry. However, one issue that troubled the family was Hudson’s sleep patterns. He often stayed up for five hours each night, making it difficult for the whole family to get enough rest.
After years of dealing with this problem, Michelle, 36, from Adelaide, decided to take Hudson to a paediatrician for a sleep study. The doctor promised to find the cause of his sleep issues and prescribed clonidine in the meantime. This medication is commonly used to help children fall asleep and is usually compounded into a liquid form by a pharmacist because the tablets are too strong for kids.
Hudson was prescribed 1-2 ml once a night, which was meant to contain 20 micrograms per ml. Michelle gave him his first dose in May 2025, but she was shocked by how quickly it affected him. “He fell asleep in the shower within five or 10 minutes of taking it,” she recalls. “He was floppy and didn’t look right. When he woke up, he was still really out of it and fell asleep over his breakfast.”
The next day, Michelle took Hudson to the Flinders Emergency Department. A doctor checked his dosage, but it was well below the overdose limit, so they suggested that Hudson might just be particularly sensitive to the medication.
However, as the days passed, Michelle became increasingly worried. “He was a zombie, nothing like our child,” she says. “I started thinking I’d rather have him never sleep again than him lose his personality.”
Before their next paediatrician review, where Michelle wanted to discuss her concerns, Hudson needed a new bottle of clonidine. Their lives began to unravel when he started the new bottle on June 9. He was still up three hours later, which was the first red flag. The next day, Hudson was shaky and aggressive, flipping a table.
“I called the pharmacist and said, ‘I’m worried the new medication isn’t correct,’” Michelle says. Horrifyingly, it was discovered that the new bottle was correct, but the old one—which Hudson had taken for the past 46 nights—was wrongly mixed. Instead of 20 micrograms per ml, it was 200 micrograms. He was receiving the medicine at a deadly 10 times the prescribed dose and quadruple the dose considered an overdose.
A doctor later told Michelle that this could have caused a stroke and killed Hudson on any of the nights he took it. Hudson needed urgent hospitalisation and a full weaning plan because dropping the dosage dramatically, like they unknowingly had, was causing terrifying withdrawal symptoms.
“It was so awful. I felt so guilty,” Michelle says, even though it wasn’t her fault. “A senior consultant at the poison helpline said he didn’t know how Hudson had survived.”
The pharmacy took full responsibility for what had happened, but that didn’t make Hudson better. The little boy endured months of withdrawals, losing speech, memory, and developing aggression and anxiety. “We were told he had regressed to the developmental age of a two-year-old,” Michelle says. “He needed so many therapies—speech, psychology.”
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Incredibly, the insurance company argued they couldn’t agree on any settlement until they knew the full extent of Hudson’s injuries, which could be years away. It meant the Reedys had to drain their savings. “It’s not fair to Hudson. There was an error that my little boy might never recover from, but if he had a chance [to recover], we needed the money to do it now,” Michelle says.
Alongside caring for Hudson, the insurance battle became her second fight. When, after she went to the media and they got a small payout, she decided to take it a step further. “I am calling for Hudson’s Law in South Australia to ensure children harmed by preventable medical errors receive immediate access to therapy,” Michelle says. “This would give them the best chance to recover and reclaim their development.”
Her petition has already got hundreds of signatures, and Hudson’s story has caught the attention of MPs keen to get involved. A recent MRI has thankfully shown Hudson doesn’t have any brain damage from his experience, but the Reedys are still living with the physical and emotional impact every day.
“Hudson is getting better, but whenever things happen, I will always question if that’s normal or from the overdose?” Michelle says. “It will always be with me. We have to heal as a family, but the guilt is immense. I’m determined Hudson’s story will help other kids in some way.”
