Like many men, digital marketing sales executive and part time music producer, Simon A from Crowborough, East Sussex was inclined to shrug off illness. When he began to experience flu-like symptoms in February 2017 the 38 year old didn’t think too much of it. He now knows the importance of acting fast to get treatment for sepsis symptoms and the difference between life and death that doing so can make.  

Simon’s story began one day in the late winter of 2017 when he started to feel unwell with a cough. Feeling weak on his legs and presuming that he was just coming down with flu, he didn’t drive himself home from work that day but got his dad to collect him instead. 

Once Simon got home he slept for 24 hours. He eventually woke up feeling breathless so as an asthmatic, and with his inhaler not working, he phoned his GP. The GP could hear in Simon’s voice over the phone that he was very unwell and called an ambulance. When it arrived, paramedics checked Simon’s temperature and established that he had a fever. They noticed that his hands and feet were cold and when they lifted his shirt they could see that his skin was purple, red and blue in colour. 

Simon was immediately taken to the Tunbridge Wells hospital, where he was given oxygen. A specialist came to see him and took blood in an attempt to establish whether he had pneumonia or meningitis. Simon’s blood pressure was very low by this stage and his temperature was high so the medics were fairly sure that Simon had sepsis but were unsure what was causing it. 

Doctors decided that they needed to put Simon into an induced coma and onto a ventilator in order to take over his breathing as he was effectively suffocating. It was at this point that Simon was told that he had sepsis. One doctor apparently described him as the sickest man they had ever seen. Simon was also told at this stage to say goodbye to his family as there was a very strong chance that he wouldn’t wake up from the coma. He says that at this stage he just felt like he didn’t want to suffocate any longer. Having been told that without treatment he was likely to die anyway, he quickly accepted the situation, said a prayer and went to sleep. Simon’s family were also told by the doctors to say their goodbyes, ‘So they were mentally preparing for me to die,’ he says. 

During that first night in a coma two doctors had to make a decision as to whether to give Simon medication to treat pneumonia or meningitis. It now appears that they chose correctly when they decided to treat pneumonia. 

Simon remained in a coma for five to six weeks. Initially on waking his condition started to improve and he began to eat and drink again. Some two weeks later he then spoke to the surgeon about his legs being amputated. They began to soak his legs in buckets of potassium permanganate.  ‘That treatment was designed to save the skin on my knees. To let someone live with dead legs for weeks is horrible. The doctor had a plan that the skin would have time to heal and grow and that’s why they chose the potassium permanganate route,’ he explains.  

Four weeks after waking up from the coma Simon’s fingers were amputated. He had suffered from necrosis (restricted blood supply to Simon’s digits had effectively caused the flesh to die). He asked the doctors what was likely to happen to them and was told ‘We can take them off whenever you want; are you finding them useful at the moment? You need to be aware that you may knock them off in your sleep so you need to be careful.’ Simon remembers saying that his fingers were beginning to hurt and that doctors should remove them. 

Simon then had to wait for new skin to grow back over his legs, which took about five months – time that he spent in the local cottage hospital in Crowborough. He was then transferred to Guys and St. Thomas’ Hospital where his legs were amputated and remained there for four weeks post-surgery whilst they healed. He was eventually discharged from hospital in September 2017 before being transferred to Lambeth community care centre for four months to learn to walk again and to get fitted with prosthetic legs. 

During his treatment Simon was given steroids as well as blood transfusions to flush the sepsis out of his blood stream. Once the sepsis had been treated and he had undergone the amputations he received physiotherapy, plus the rehab care during his four months in Lambeth. These days he is treatment-free apart from regular fittings for new legs at Brighton Rehabilitation Centre, which will be necessary for the rest of his life. 

Simon says that he quickly realised that his life would be different and that he would have to find alternative ways to do things. Before his admission to Tunbridge Wells hospital in February he and his music team had been in the middle of writing some tracks. He had to get straight back into music production once in the rehab unit in order to finish off a mix for an event in Brighton that was coming up.  

Throughout it all, Simon says that he has been so grateful for the support that he has received from his family and friends, as well as from doctors and medical staff. He is also now reliant on government benefits. He continues to work as a digital marketing sales exec and part-time music producer and writes music in his spare time.

Simon had heard about the charity Sepsis Research FEAT before but didn’t really know what it was, nor about the potential range of side-effects of sepsis or how it can arise. He became involved with the charity at the end of 2022 when he decided that he wanted to help others by giving them a better understanding of how sepsis had affected his life. He also wanted to show those who have suffered with it and have lost limbs that life can be ok. ‘Yes, there are trials day to day,’ he says, ‘but nothing in comparison to what it would have been like losing my life and leaving my family and friends with that grief in their hearts.’

By sharing his story with Sepsis Research FEAT, Simon says that he wants to give others hope. In the future he thinks that he could potentially also use his skills as a musician and music producer to benefit the charity by providing a track that represents or raises money for its work.

Simon finishes by saying, ‘I guess my message to others would be that if you feel really unwell, don’t be afraid to get it checked. When people think what they have is just the flu everyone presumes they’ll be fine and that it’s just an average illness. I would say: get it checked as soon as you can. I left it 48 hours too late.’