A mum-of-two who almost lost her life to sepsis after going into cardiac arrest in A&E has said the quick actions of emergency services staff including those at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in recognising and treating her rapidly deteriorating condition was the difference between her "being here or not".
Alexandra Plank, 41, from Greenhill, was at home looking after her youngest daughter in May 2023 when she started to feel unwell.
Assuming it was just a "nasty cold" and with her husband at the Sheffield Children's Hospital caring for their eldest daughter, who was an inpatient receiving treatment for cystic fibrosis, she carried on with her hectic schedule of juggling work with nursery pick-ups and drop-offs.
But then when her husband returned, he spotted her lips had turned blue, the tips of her fingers were grey, and she was experiencing pain when breathing. His instincts kicked in - and fearing something was wrong, he called 111.
An ambulance crew was called, and suspecting sepsis from pneumonia, she was rushed to the Northern General Hospital's A&E department.
By now Alex's sepsis was progressing rapidly and with doctors fearing the worst, her husband was taken to one side and told she would likely not recover. Just moments later, she went into cardiac arrest and doctors in A&E performed CPR for three minutes to restart her heart before she was taken to critical care at the Northern General Hospital.
A life beyond critical care unimaginable
.jpg)
|Alex spent three months in critical care at the Northern General Hospital
Alex - who describes her life as being 'before, with and after' sepsis, remembers very little from that point onwards - and she went from crashing in A&E to waking up in critical care two weeks later.
"I remember getting a chest x-ray in A&E and being told it was pneumonia but then I don't really remember anything until I woke up two weeks later in critical care. I was on a ventilator, meaning it was a struggle to communicate and there was a lot of medical equipment around me, monitors and wires and machines. It was very difficult to process what was going on and what had happened."
Over the next six weeks she received dialysis and blood transfusions, and round-the-clock monitoring in critical care. Mapping out any kind of future beyond treatment felt inconceivable.
"I just assumed I would always be in critical care. I felt big, I was bloated from all the medication, I had blisters down my arms and legs, and because the blood flow had been restricted to my extremities, my right foot and ankle, the toes on my left foot and the fingers on both hands had started to die. It just didn't seem conceivable that I could ever live a normal life again, I was completely bedbound."
Following her stay in critical care, Alex was then moved to the infectious diseases unit, where she would spend another six weeks. She was finally discharged at the end of July, three months after first being admitted to hospital with suspected sepsis.
New beginnings
.jpg)
|Learning how to walk with her prosthetic leg (Nov 2023) and completing the Sheffield 10K (Sept 2025)
However, her ordeal didn't stop there - and to give her the best chance of a successful quality of life, her right leg was amputated below-the-knee, along with the toes on her left foot and the majority of her fingers. Even today, her organs continue to be impacted - including her lung and kidney function which remains low.
Since then, she has started to rebuild her life, undertaking physio and strength training to walk confidently with her prosthetic leg. Last September, she proudly completed the Sheffield 10k run, which she describes as an "enormous achievement" given how ill she had been.
Her recovery has also opened a new chapter in her career. Having previously worked in engineering placements at the University, she began volunteering at her daughter's school, completing a qualification to become a teaching assistant and when a role came up, she successfully applied.
Speaking of her recovery she said:
"It was very subtle. I never really noticed it happening. It doesn't seem that long ago that I had sepsis but then I stop and think of all the things that I have done since then, I have to pinch myself a bit.
"I feel I've done more and achieved more since my illness than I did previously. I can still be a mum and even though my goals and ambitions might not seem big to everyone, every day it's just such a huge thing for me that I can get up and carry on living my life, go to work, and be with my family.
"I do get angry and sad sometimes and feel it's not fair, but it could have been a lot worse. The overall outcome might not be what everybody would see as positive, given I'm still living with the effects of sepsis every day. But because it was suspected, it was acted upon - and that's the difference between being here or not. I've still got a life and it's just having the opportunity to get up and have the physical and mental strength to live my life. It genuinely means everything to me."
Sepsis awareness
.jpg)
|Staff have been raising awareness of sepsis throughout Sepsis Awareness Month
September is Sepsis Awareness Month - and to mark the event Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have launched a Spot It. Say It. Start the Clock campaign to improve awareness that sepsis is a medical emergency. Educational sepsis trolleys and a poster competition for staff are also being organised.
Dr Rachel Foster, Clinical Lead, Infectious Diseases, and Consultant in Acute Medicine at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: "Sepsis continues to claim many lives, and around 1 in five deaths worldwide are associated with sepsis. Yet it is often treatable if caught quickly.
"Alex's story is an incredibly powerful reminder of why listening to those closest to patients matters as sepsis can progress very quickly, within several hours, and initial signs and symptoms can be subtle, so loved ones and family members are most likely to notice that there's a problem. Crucially, Alex's deterioration was spotted and escalated, and by simply acting on the suspicion of sepsis, she was able to access life-saving treatments."
Treatment for sepsis needs to be given in hospital within an hour to reduce the chances of the body's immune system going into overdrive. This can lead to septic shock, multi-organ failure and death.
Symptoms of sepsis in adults to watch for include slurred speech or confusion, extreme shivering or muscle pain/fever, severe breathlessness, passing no urine or all day, or very little in the past 18 hours, and mottled or discoloured skin.
