Little Aiyla Mota’s bright smile lit up the room when Britain’s Got Talent judge Alesha Dixon surprised her with the amazing news she’d won a Pride of Britain Child of Courage award. The sassy five-year-old, who had both legs and five fingers amputated to save her life in March 2023, after developing sepsis, was visiting the BGT auditions in Blackpool this week with her mum, Eulanda. Given a tour of the TV set-up, before Alesha handed her a magic golden envelope, Aiyla tells The Mirror : “I was so excited!”, Aiyla Mota tells the Mirror.
Eulanda, 28, says: “When we first heard we were going to Blackpool, I told her we were going on a night away. I didn't mention anything else. “She loves hotels, so was looking forward to it.
“I told her we were doing some filming and she said ‘I love filming’. When we got there, we put our bags away and the crew took us away for the ‘surprise’. “They gave us a backstage tour of BGT, which Aiyla was excited about.
We went through to the main stage, which is when Alesha Dixon came out.” The singer and BGT judge had visited Aiyla in hospital in 2023 after she was diagnosed with sepsis, after getting a sore throat which, at first, seemed to be a run-of-the-mill childhood infection. But when she suffered stomach pains and her breathing worsened, Euland took her to A&E.
Antibiotics had no effect and doctors diagnosed her with sepsis - an often life threatening reaction to infection - as well as a strep A infection, as tes.