I would have died if I had been alone at home, says WM breakfast show star
BBC radio presenter went into septic shock live on radio
BBC WM breakfast host Samantha Meah has told how being taken seriously ill live on air in the studio actually saved her life.
Back broadcasting this week, she admitted: “I would have died if I had fallen ill at home. Luckily I was here and an ambulance was called.
Ms Meah was struck down with septic shock just before the 8am news at the end of the first week of her new Sam and Daz at Breakfast show.
By 9am, with colleague Daz Hale still broadcasting live, she had been stabilised by paramedics and was then rushed to Sandwell General Hospital.
Lozells-born Samantha, 54,was put in intensive care for two days, had two blood transfusions and spent three weeks on a ward having ‘trippy dreams’. Sepsis that causes dangerously low blood pressure is called septic shock.
The Birmingham-based UK Sepsis Trust says sepsis is now killing 52,000 per year – five people per hour.
Antibiotic treatment should start within an hour of diagnosis to reduce the risk of serious complications or death.
Ms Meah said: “I was in intensive care for a couple of days, had two blood transfusions and was in there for three weeks.
“They literally saved my life because sepsis is something that apparently GPs miss quite a lot. Across the country, it’s very new, there’s a septic shock pathway so that people are treated straight away.
“It’s eminently treatable, but it kills an enormous amount of people.”
She added: “At Christmas I had an issue with an inflamed gall bladder.
“I thought I had gallstones. I was told to leave it for three weeks until the inflammation had gone down.
“For the first week of the show I felt OK but progressively a little bit worse and thought I would go and see the doctor after getting home on the Friday.”
It was the end of the first week of the new Sam and Daz at Breakfast show that Ms Meah realised things were not right
“Just before the 8am news, I went into septic shock,” she recalled.
“I didn’t realise what that was but suddenly became freezing cold. My colleague Matt Mitchell gave me his great big jacket, but I was shaking, my teeth were chattering and I could not open the computer in front of me so I knew something was seriously wrong.
“I was about to interview Faye Tozer from Strictly... so I was all excit- ed about that but I was so incapable of doing anything. So an ambulance was called because I knew there was something seriously wrong. It took paramedics about 45 minutes to stabilise me in the ambulance.
”Three weeks in hospital is a very, very interesting experience because you have the best, trippy dreams.
“The one good part about being in hospital is the strange dreams you have. You are sort of sleeping all the time and you are being pumped full of antibiotics, or I was anyway.”
She added: “I am still on a heroic amount of antibiotics.”
Septic shock can occur as a complication of sepsis, a serious condition that happens when the body’s reaction to an infection damages its own tissues and organs.
The UK Sepsis Trust is based at Bennetts Hill, Birmingham. For more information, call 0800 389 6255.