Caller tells Eddie Mair shocking sepsis story

17 January 2020, 17:23 | Updated: 17 January 2020, 17:29

This teenage caller told Eddie Mair a shocking sepsis story - her boyfriend appeared to have a cold and in under 24 hours was in hospital in an induced coma.

It has been found that sepsis has overtaken cancer as the world's biggest killer with the condition accounting for one in five of all deaths, according to research published in The Lancet. Thankfully, caller Connie's boyfriend survived.

"Within 24 hours of the plane landing, my boyfriend was in intensive care on a respirator after being diagnosed with pneumonial sepsis," she said, sharing that he was put into an induced coma which was "terrifying."

On the flight "he seemed like he just had a cold" and she said as soon as they got to the hotel, "the onset of symptoms was so fast. His speech slurred, he had an intense fever, I think the doctor measured that at over 100 degrees, severe breathlessness," she said.

The reason she called the doctor was because his skin was looking mottled which she knew to be one of the signs of sepsis due the fact her friend's dad recently contracted the condition.

"It's ridiculous really how fast the symptoms of sepsis can fly in," Connie said and revealed her boyfriend is now out of intensive care and being discharged from hospital today.

"He's only 25 so he managed to fight it extremely quickly compared to many people that contract sepsis," she said, sharing that she was only 19 herself. Connie remarked that you don't expect it to happen to a young healthy person but of someone elderly or whose immune system is compromised.

"It really shows that it genuinely can happen to anybody and if you don't know the signs it can get very critical very quickly," she said and congratulated Amsterdam for its "incredible" care and "within minutes" had paramedics on the scene.