I feel like I’m dying
What student, 21, told medics before being sent home – only to be killed hours later by sepsis
A STUDENT died after doctors failed to spot he had sepsis and sent him home, an inquest has heard.
Tim Mason, 21, told medics he ‘felt like he was dying’ but was discharged from hospital.
Hours later he was taken back to the A&E department, where he went into septic shock. The trainee electrical engineer had two heart attacks and died while his heartbroken family watched on and ‘shouted at him to fight for his life’.
Staff at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Kent missed ‘several’ chances to test Mr Mason for sepsis despite him displaying signs of the deadly infection, and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust has admitted breaching a duty of care.
Recording a narrative verdict yesterday, coroner Roger Hatch ruled that his death was caused by the failure to diagnose and treat his septicaemia at the hospital.
Septicaemia is defined as having bacteria in the bloodstream that cause sepsis, an extreme inflammatory response to infection.
The Daily Mail has been campaigning to raise awareness of sepsis, which is difficult to diagnose until it has spread through the body. It is the leading cause of avoidable deaths in Britain, killing at least 44,000 people every year.
Mr Mason became ill with flu-like symptoms on March 8, and had to take time away from his studies at Sussex Downs College and his job.
He was admitted to hospital at 3.39am on March 16 but was discharged at 8.10am without having had a sepsis screening, despite sufwho fering from symptoms such as a high heart rate and a high body temperature of 39C (102F).
His mother Fiona Mason told the inquest in Maidstone: ‘I begged for a doctor to attend urgently.
‘Nothing happened. He was frightened and expressed this to both me and his doctor. He said he felt like he was dying.’
The first doctor to see Mr Mason, Dr Maxim Bacon, who had been qualified for just over a year, conceded he should have been assessed for sepsis. Dr Bacon said: ‘I wish I had put him through the sepsis protocol. I was unsure more than anything as to just how unwell he was.’
Mr Mason was diagnosed with gastroenteritis, given antibiotics and fluids then sent home. He had actually contracted the rare and lifethreatening W strain of meningitis, which led him to develop sepsis.
He began violently vomiting and collapsed at home in Eridge near Tunbridge Wells, so was taken back to the hospital at 2.48pm.
Mr Mason was taken to the intensive care unit and had a heart attack at 9.03pm. He suffered another heart attack eight minutes later and Mrs Mason, her husband Gavin and their two other sons Alex, 27, and Nick, 23, watched him die.
Coroner Mr Hatch said that given Mr Mason’s symptoms he should have had a sepsis screening and been seen by a senior doctor.
‘Had he been correctly diagnosed, it is most likely he would have been prescribed intravenous antibiotics and he would not have died,’ he said. ‘This should have happened six hours earlier when he first presented.’
In a statement, Dr Peter Maskell, medical director of the hospital trust, said: ‘We are truly sorry that we did not do everything that we could have clinically to help diagnose Timothy’s sepsis sooner, and take steps to treat this diagnosis.’
The trust has implemented new protocols for assessing patients.