Sam Wallace had sepsis in 2016, and deteriorated rapidly on the plane home from his holiday.
As someone with a rare blood condition – Paroxysmal Nocturnal Haemoglobinuria (PNH) – which makes him more at risk of sepsis, Sam is sharing his harrowing ordeal to make others aware of how fast the condition can strike.
Sam was on his way home from Malaga on a Swiss Air flight feeling a little bit unwell, but he put it down to post holiday blues. He said: “Within 6-7 hours I went from feeling very fatigued, to very dehydrated and very unwell in the sense that my temperature had gone through the roof. I’d been sick; it literally just felt like I was dying, basically.”
His partner at the time noticed that he had been in the toilet on the plane for a while, and so called for assistance. The plane staff were able to open the toilet door, where they found him passed out. Sam has rare blood condition, PNH, and so carries a card to make others aware of his condition, and therefore his susceptibility to sepsis.
Fortunately for Sam, there were two nurses on the plane who came to his aid. They recognised that he had meningococcal septicaemia. Sam said: “I think what really struck me after not really knowing much about the condition myself, was how much people in healthcare settings do know about it and how much they could recognise it. If it wasn’t for them recognising it, I probably wouldn’t have got the treatment on the ground ready for me for when the plane landed.”
He added: “I’d been on the beach at 8:00 o’clock in the morning, I’d been splashing about on the beach like a little kid. And then literally by 6:00 o’clock at night it was completely different. I was virtually incapacitated. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have really got on a plane to come back. It could have been the biggest mistake that I’ve ever made.”
After landing at Birmingham Airport, Sam was taken to Birmingham Heartlands Hospital where he spent the next two weeks in intensive care – a traumatising ordeal for him, as well as friends and family who came to visit. He was covered from head to toe in rashes, that doctors took photos of because they were some of the worst they’d ever seen. Eventually, he was well enough to leave – but the ordeal didn’t end there. Sam said:
“I think the recovery was very much twofold in terms of physical and mental.”
His physical recovery was a painstaking process involving lots of physiotherapy. Sam said: “It took me a good 12 to 18 months, to fully lose walking aids and crutches and things like that. So that was quite a long time and this was going from prior me being able to do running, walking and being relatively fit.”
As well as having to learn to walk again, Sam suffered with random pains months after his hospital discharge. He also suffered with a lack of autonomy; having to rely on others to help him with things he’d previously been able to do by himself without problem. Sam also suffered mentally with nightmares, and still experiences flashbacks now any time he gets ill with similar symptoms or needs to visit hospital due to his condition. Sam said: “Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy physically, but I’ve kind of got to a point where I’ve pretty much recovered from it. But there will always be that mental scarring, as well as some physical scarring, but fortunately again for the doctors around me and the nurses around me, the physical effects weren’t as bad as what the mental effects were.”
After being discharged, Sam didn’t seek help for the mental aftereffects of sepsis – something that he would go back in time to change if he could, and what motivates him to share his story with UKST today. He said:
“I didn’t seek support at the time, but I think over the long term, it would have benefited me to do so, and I’d encourage anyone to do that.”
Following his ordeal, Sam is keenly attuned to the signs of sepsis and knows to carry a thermometer with him so that he can check his temperature, and is also more on top of his medication management. In terms of advice to others who may have an underlying condition, Sam said: “No one wants to be at the hospital every five minutes, but actually if you do check your symptoms, if you do speak to a doctor or nurse or one of your health professionals and just run them through what’s going on, I think that is the thing that could save your life, because if you do leave it to the last minute you are completely narrowing down the chances of a surviving, or having life-changing injuries.”
Sam also encourages anyone that is abroad and feeling poorly to visit the hospital rather than get on a plane – because that’s ultimately what you take out travel insurance for. While being in hospital abroad wouldn’t be particularly fun, it’s better than risking being in the air thousands of miles from medical aid!
Now, Sam is busy training for the Birmingham Half Marathon which he is undertaking in May to help raise vital funds for UKST, and also much-needed awareness of how devastating sepsis can me. Commenting on what motivated him to take on this incredible challenge, Sam said: “It seemed for me like that final step in that mental recovery, in the sense of, ‘OK well, you’ve managed to get through what you did, but now you go back and make sure that other people can as well’. And that’s why I’ve decided to do it.”
We’re grateful to Sam for his support – donate to his page here.