Sepsis warning after woman's quadruple amputation

Warning: this article contains images some readers might find upsetting.

After 32 weeks in hospital, several cardiac arrests and a quadruple amputation, sepsis survivor Manjit Sangha has finally returned home.

Despite medics thinking the 56-year-old would almost certainly die, she left Ward 9 at Moseley Hall in Birmingham on Wednesday, receiving a hero's welcome from her family in Penn, on the Wolverhampton/Staffordshire border.

Doctors believe her sepsis might have been caused by something as innocent as a lick from her dog on a small cut or scratch.

As she recovers and begins to rebuild her life, she now wants to warn others of the danger of sepsis, believing "it could happen to anybody".

"It's difficult to explain the experience," she said. "Losing your limbs and your hands in a short time period is a very big thing.

"It's very serious and not to be taken lightly."

Sepsis is a rare but serious medical condition which occurs when the body's immune system, which is meant to fight against disease and infection, starts to attack the body's own tissues and organs.

The NHS says it is life-threatening and can be hard to spot, while the UK Sepsis Trust says there are about 50,000 sepsis-related deaths in the UK each year.

In adults, symptoms can include but are not limited to slurred speech, extreme shivering or muscle pain, severe breathlessness and skin that is mottled or discoloured.

Manjit Sangha, who worked seven days a week before her illness, returned home on a Sunday afternoon in July last year, feeling unwell.

By the following morning, she was unconscious. Her hands and feet were ice-cold, her lips had turned purple and she was struggling to breathe.

"Your mind is all over the place," said her husband Kam Sangha. "You're thinking 'how can this happen in less than 24 hours?'

"One minute on a Saturday she's playing with the dog, Sunday she's gone to work, Monday night she's in a coma."

Manjit Sangha's heart stopped six times while in intensive care at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton.

Surgeons at Russells Hall Hospital in neighbouring Dudley later had to amputate both of her legs below the knee, as well as both of her hands, due to the spread of the condition.

The former pharmacy worker also lost her spleen, battled pneumonia and developed gallstones which she was told might require further surgery.

"I didn't know what was happening," she explained. "The first month I do not remember anything."

Kam Sangha, 60, a distribution worker at Screwfix, has been off work for seven months to support his wife and said he could not be more proud.

"She's so strong," he added.

"Every day was like 'she's going to go today' but she proved us wrong every single day with what she's been through."

The couple spent their 37th wedding anniversary in hospital, as well as Manjit Sangha's birthday around Christmas time.

The couple are now fundraising for advanced prosthetics, including potentially robotic hands, which they said could cost tens of thousands of pounds.

So far they have raised more than £22,000 through a GoFundMe webpage and fundraising at Screwfix, where Manjit Sangha also worked weekend shifts alongside her pharmacy role.

While she knows there is a difficult road ahead, she said she was determined to rebuild her life.

"I want to get walking," she said. "I want to get my prosthetics [and] to go back to work.

"I've sat down in my chair and my bed enough. It's time to walk now."

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