Most people like a dip in a hot tub but they might think twice after hearing about a woman in the UK who nearly died from sepsis and gangrene when she got into her friend’s hot tub.
According to the Daily Mail, Hayley Thomas accidentally cut her leg with a razor before stepping into the hot tub with her son. The following day, she experienced painful red rashes all over her skin and 9 days later was rushed to hospital with large sores all over her body.
In a shocking turn of events, the woman was diagnosed with sepsis which she contracted from bacteria in the hot tub. The bacteria is thought to have entered her bloodstream through the tiny cut that she had made on her leg with the razor.
Ms Thomas ran the risk of having large parts of her skin removed in an attempt to save her four limbs which were all at risk from the attack. To avoid this, she was given an aggressive course of antibiotics which attacked the sepsis infection and eventually allowed her to be well enough to go home from hospital.
Now that her frightening ordeal is behind her, Hayley is speaking out about the dangers of using hot tubs, particularly while there is any risk of a wound – even a tiny one like a shaving cut. She said she will never use a hot tub again and told the Daily Mail: “To hear I could die because of a tiny shaving cut on my leg after relaxing in a hot tub was just unbelievable, and yet there I was.”
While pictures were taken of Hayley’s wounds so that training doctors could learn from them, she is just grateful that her life was saved and that her son didn’t fall ill.
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