A DAD almost died after scratching himself while cutting his nails.
Tatton Spiller developed a life-threatening condition in June 2022 after getting a “very small cut” which put him in intensive care for five days.
Initially, the 43-year-old didn’t think much of the accidental nail cutter injury.
“It wasn’t a huge cut. In fact there is no scar left, no lasting mark,” Tatton, from Kent, said.
But over the next few days, his hand started to get very tender and sore.
To be on the safe side, the dad-of-four decided to visit the minor injuries unit where he was soon told to go home and take paracetamol, he claims.
When he returned home alone, Tatton had started to throw up.
Too unwell to write a text, the dad from Kent tried to send a voice note to his partner Katie, which got progressively “less coherent”.
When Katie couldn’t make it home, she asked her mum to check on her partner.
Her mother found Tatton “in bed, dying.”
“If she hadn’t come round, I can’t bear to think what would have happened,” the politics writer said.
Once the ambulance arrived Tatton said he was taken straight to the intensive care unit (ICU), where his memory became hazy and the hallucinations began.
Tatton, who also has bipolar disorder, was quickly diagnosed with sepsis, a life-threatening condition that occurs when the body’s immune system overreacts to an infection or injury, damaging the body’s tissues and organs.
The infection left him convinced him it was 1996, he was in a cinema, and that a tiger was in his hospital room.
He added: “I didn’t know where I was. I had no relation to reality at all.
It is not just the risk of dying, but having your hands and feet amputated, being in a coma, your loved ones being told you might die
Tatton Spiller
“I couldn’t tell them the year, the prime minister or the day of the week. I was insistent that it was 1996.”
It was only when Katie, who he has been with for six years, could finally visit that he snapped out of the haze and was moved to a recovery ward.
Initially, nurses couldn’t reassure Katie that Tatton would survive.
But since the incident, the dad has fully recovered physically but still battles with mental health from the traumatic events.
Tatton remained in the ICU for five days before being transferred to the general ward where he stayed for ten more days, while he regained his strength.
I gradually got better, even going as far as walking to the shower on my own,” he explained.
But as the days went on, Tatton began to struggle mentally so decided to discharge himself.
“I had lost a lot of weight, grown a lot of facial hair and just needed to be in my own bed,” he said.
He was unable to cut his nails in the first few months after going home, asking his fiancée to do it for him.
Tatton, who founded the popular website Simple Politics, said: “I was pretty unlucky to get it but having survived it. I am a very lucky man.
“I have since physically made a full recovery. Mentally I experience bad flashbacks to the intensive care unit.
“I remember some of those visions very clearly and they are not good.
“Anything can set me off and it is hard because suddenly you are back dying in the hospital again”
Now Tatton is fighting for more awareness for the condition, encouraging others to get their cuts examined, no matter how small.
He said: “The word sepsis is much more in people’s vocabulary now than it was.
“It takes such a small infection that then has these huge consequences.
“Getting people to ask, ‘could this be sepsis?’ and get it checked out is so important.
“It is not just the risk of dying, but having your hands and feet amputated, being in a coma, your loved ones being told you might die.
“All of it is preventable if we could get people to question whether they have sepsis.”
Sepsis Research Feat added: “Tatton’s story illustrates vividly how something as seemingly innocuous as a minor wound can lead to life-threatening sepsis. Anyone can be affected by sepsis at any time.
“The potential cognitive and traumatic aspects of sepsis are also so marked in Tatton’s story.”
Source: Stop Sepsis Save Lives
