‘Thank you for saving my Amy’

Mum praises GP who diagnosed daughter’s sepsis

An Angus art student has hailed medical staff who saved her life after she almost died of sepsis.

Amy Crawford, 22, from Carnoustie, could not stand by the time she arrived at Kings Cross Hospital’s out-of-hours service in Dundee due to the pain.

Dr Anjali Patil immediately diagnosed Amy with suspected sepsis and she was taken by ambulance to Ninewells for an emergency life-saving operation with a pulse rate of 146 and a temperature of 39.9 degrees.

On Monday surgeons successfully removed a large internal abscess that was turning septic – just before it ruptured and burst.

Without quick treatment, sepsis can lead to multiple organ failure and death and remains the primary cause of death from infection.

Amy, who is now recovering at home with her family, said she owed her life to “real-life angels” Dr Patil and the surgical team at Ninewells.

The Duncan of Jordanstone student is now setting her sights on getting back to full health before her degree show.

She said: “If I had been left a day longer then I wouldn’t like to think what might have happened.

“I can’t thank Dr Patil enough at out-of-hours, who finally recognised something was wrong and acted so quickly.

“I knew there was an issue when even the ambulance staff were panicking when my pulse rate increased to 146 beats per minute.”

Amy started to feel a pain on April 1 but put it down to a niggle suffered at an exercise class before it got worse and she was struggling to walk.

She saw a doctor at Carnoustie’s Park View during the week who allegedly suggested “meditation” for the pain and dismissed a suggestion from Amy’s mum Linda that it could be sepsis, asking: “Is she a nurse?”

She was given a tub of ointment to rub on the affected area and told to take paracetamol tablets four times a day but, by the end of the week, she could not eat or sleep.

Linda was getting increasingly worried as Amy’s condition got worse and called NHS 24 on Saturday for an out-of-hours appointment.

There was no out-of-hours service available at Arbroath at the time due to absences so Linda and husband Bruce drove to Dundee with Amy stretched out in pain across the back seats of the car.

Linda said: “Dr Patil understood the worry we were going through and was just so reassuring and professional – we can’t thank her enough for saving Amy’s life.

“She is the gold standard for GPs, in my eyes, and just had that human touch – she even phoned me at home to check on Amy’s recovery.”

Amy is grateful to the “real-life angels” who saved her life.