MP Mike Wood developed sepsis in January 2017 and spent 11 days in an induced coma. 

Mike says he was as fit as he had ever been when he contracted a chest infection in 2016. He was given a single course of antibiotics by his GP which helped but didn’t fully clear up the infection. 

By late January, he was on a four-day trip to Strasbourg for parliamentary council meetings when, over the course of his trip, his condition deteriorated relatively quickly. He excused himself from meetings and initially rested in bed before visiting a local pharmacy for medication for what he thought was a sore throat due to a heavy cold or flu. 

Mike returned home towards the end of the week but on a Thursday night he was “really not well”. He says it was only later, by looking at receipts, that he was able to piece together the details of his journey home from the airport.

He just managed to attend an event to launch an enterprise zone in his constituency on Friday morning before returning home and sleeping for the rest of the day. 

On a Saturday morning, he got up and started putting his suit jacket on top of his pyjamas and told his wife Laura that he needed to go down to Parliament to vote. She realized he was confused and potentially seriously ill and took Mike by taxi to Russells Hall Hospital. He was quickly admitted and was placed in an induced coma and on a ventilator for 11 days, during which time most of his organs shut down and there was a suspicion that he had also suffered from an aborted heart attack.

Mike says that he has very few memories of the Friday and no memories at all from the Saturday onwards until early February.

The streptococcal infection that triggered septic shock had started off as a cold and moved to Mike’s chest before spreading into his bloodstream. As well as his heart, Mike’s kidneys stopped working and his lungs were also affected.

After he woke from the coma 11 days later he remained in the ICU and then in the coronary care ward for another week, spending a total of three weeks in hospital. 

It was an extremely concerning time for Mike’s family, Laura was aware he was seriously ill but not of the real danger he was in. Mike’s parents knew that the situation was “very, very bleak” and told his parliamentary staff that he had been given a 10% chance of survival.

The government was very supportive of Mike and his family, being in regular contact with Laura and Mike’s parents while he was in the hospital. Other MPs offered emotional and practical support to help with his parliamentary work and made sure that Mike’s staff were supported. 

Mike was only vaguely aware of sepsis prior to becoming ill himself. He believed it had something to do with blood infection, but says “I couldn’t have told you any of the symptoms before, even knowing one or two people who had been affected by sepsis. Obviously early intervention is the key thing, that does just depend on people realising that something isn’t right. This was in a completely different category in terms of not being able to get out of bed. Only in retrospect, did I realize I wasn’t really taking in any liquids and I also wasn’t urinating at all. But obviously, that’s not something you think about at the time.” 

Mike is still taking ongoing medication including statins and Beta-Blockers. He has some ongoing nerve damage in one foot which causes him discomfort and numbness.