A UK woman has spoken of her near deadly experience with sepsis while travelling in New Zealand, after an illness which began as a mild urinary tract infection.
Rosie Beveridge said she started to develop concerning symptoms, which seemed to be much worse than the infection she thought she was battling, after her painkillers wore off.
She told the Daily Mail she had a tight chest, felt as though her brain was pressing against her skull, and couldn’t speak properly.
Beveridge was travelling the Twin Coast Discovery Highway in Northland with her boyfriend at the time, and was about 30 minutes from the nearest hospital.
“It felt like I was going to die,” she wrote.
What followed, after an initial misdiagnosis, was a sepsis diagnosis which left her in hospital for four days and months of being affected both physically and emotionally.
Beveridge said feeling as if she was going to die is a known symptom of the life-threatening condition, triggered by her immune system spiralling out of control and attacking her organs as a response to the infection she had.
If sepsis is not treated in time, it can cause blood pressure to plummet, organ failure, and even death.
The condition can be brought on by any infection, from a cut on the finger to more serious conditions like meningitis. Beveridge said about 30% of cases begin with a UTI.
Beveridge, who was 23-years-old during her trip to New Zealand in Easter 2024, she had developed UTI symptoms on a Wednesday, but by that Friday afternoon, her lower back was aching and she had a stabbing sensation in the right side of her abdomen.
By the evening, she was aching all over, and told herself to not make a scene at her boyfriend’s family event.
By Saturday morning, Beveridge said she brushed her boyfriend off when he asked if he should not go out fishing. “Don’t be silly. It’s a 24-hour bug,” she recalled.
However, Beveridge’s symptoms continued to get worse, and she and her boyfriend planned if things weren't better on Sunday, they would see a doctor the following day.
On Monday morning, Beveridge said she woke up with every symptom worse – so they drove to a Kawaka hospital – which was about an hour away.
She was then misdiagnosed with appendicitis, which experts said is not uncommon.
NHS consultant in intensive care and founder and chief medical officer of the UK Sepsis Trust Dr Ron Daniels told the Daily Mail: “Sepsis can arise as a consequence of infection anywhere in the body, so it's almost as if no two people with sepsis look the same.”
But Beveridge said the misdiagnosis still likely saved her life.
As the hospital did not have an operating theatre, she was sent to be treated at another hospital another hour away, where they realised she had sepsis, and began treating her for the condition.
Beveridge said what followed is still blurry to this day. However, she does remember being scared, far away from her family, and everything seeming foggy. She pressed her head on the floor of Whangarei Hospital while her boyfriend talked to the nurse at the desk.
While Beveridge was saved by doctors in the ICU, Daniels said this is not always the case for others.
The fast moving condition means every minute counts.
“Every hour's delay in getting the right treatment can make a difference to the chance of survival, somewhere between about 1% and 2% an hour,” Daniels said.
Doctors suspected Beveridge had developed sepsis from a kidney infection, but the source is often hard to pin down.
She left the hospital in a wheelchair, as she was too exhausted to begin walking again.
Beveridge said the next four weeks involved symptoms of post-sepsis syndrome – which involves fatigue, memory issues, and anxiety.
Now, almost two years later, Beveridge told the Daily Mail her physical and mental health has bounced back, but she is reminded of the traumatic experience when she hears stories about people dying from the condition.
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