Father-of-three hit by sepsis has both legs and hands amputated just ONE DAY after thinking he had caught a cold
Chris Garlick complained of flu-like symptoms on the Saturday and was rushed to intensive care the next day
DAD of three has had to have his legs and hands amputated just a day after thinking he had caught a cold.
But Chris Garlick was shocked to find out he had sepsis, when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs.
Just hours after calling NHS direct he was fighting for his life.
reports that his wife, Karran, was told he might die.
The 46-year-old lost both legs, one of his hands, and all his fingers on the other hand.
He said: “I’m looking forward to the future because I did manage to survive sepsis. I have survived and I have got things to do. I’m going to be a father and a husband again.”
He also said he is so grateful to the doctors who saved him, and Karran for her support.
He added: "It was probably the worst you are ever going to get. She would watch as my levels would drop and she would be told I was going to die. But she’s such an amazingly strong person."
On Saturday July 15 Chris, a massage therapist, felt like he was suffering from flu like symptoms.
On Sunday he was confined to bed and running a very high temperature.
Chris said: “I couldn’t walk straight and the pain in my head was unbearable, and that’s the last thing I remember.”
Karran phoned NHS Direct and they immediately dispatched an ambulance to their home.
He was taken to the intensive care unit at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport.
Karran said: “At four o’clock he was talking to me, and by six o’clock he was near death; literally."
During his first night in hospital, Chris had to be resuscitated.
Karran said doctors discovered he had contracted meningococcal bacteria, which led to sepsis.
He pleaded with doctors to save his legs but in August, on his daughter's tenth birthday, he went into surgery to have both legs amputated as well as his left hand and fingers on his right hand.
He spent another seven weeks in hospital, recovering quicker than doctors expected, and he hopes to be home by Christmas.
What is sepsis?
SEPSIS is the primary causes of death from infection, across the world - and claims around 40,000 lives in the UK each year.
The condition is always triggered by an infection.
Most often the culprit is an infection we all recognise - pneumonia, urinary infections (UTIs), skin infections including cellulitis and infections in the stomach, appendicitis for example.
When sepsis happens, this system goes into overdrive.
The inflammation that is typically seen just around a minor cut, spreads through the body, affecting healthy tissue and organs.
The immune system - the body's defence mechanism - in essence overreacts, and the result is it attacks the body.
It can lead to organ failure and septic shock, which can prove fatal.
Sepsis is a condition that fails to discriminate - it can affect old and young, those who lead healthy lives and those who don't.
As with many life-threatening illnesses, the most vulnerable are newborns, young children and the elderly, as well as anyone with a weakened immune system.
- American actor Christopher Reeve died on sepsis in 2004 after an infected pressure ulcer caused the condition
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