A small cut on his foot saw Tatton Spiller in intensive care for five days
A dad nearly died after a scratch on his foot while trimming his toenails led to a life-threatening infection. Tatton Spiller described how a “very small cut” led him to be rushed to intensive care in June 2022, where he spent five days fighting for his life.
The 43-year-old claimed that after initially seeking help at a minor injuries unit for the wound, caused by the nail clippers, but was told to just take paracetamol. Alone at home, as his fiancée was out, his condition dramatically worsened.
Tatton, a dad of four, said: “My mother-in-law found me in a right state in bed. I was dying. If she hadn’t come round, I can’t bear to think what would have happened. Going back to an empty house where there was no one to spot it and wouldn’t have been anyone for 72 hours afterwards – that could have been it.”
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Within 24 hours, the politics writer from Whitstable had returned to the same minor injries unuit where staff took one look at him and called 99. Once the ambulance arrived he was taken straight to intensive care, where his memory became hazy and hallucinations began.
Tatton continued: “I was hallucinating, I didn’t know where I was. I had no relation to reality at all.” It wasn’t until his partner Katie, who he’s been with for six years, visited that he came back to reality and continued his recovery in a ward.
Tatton, the founder of Simple Politics, has made a full physical recovery but admits he still struggles with the mental aftermath. He recalls the difficulty in performing simple tasks post-recovery, saying: “I was pretty unlucky to get it but having survived it. I am a very lucky man.”
He also shared his ongoing battle with mental health, noting: “I have since physically made a full recovery. Mentally I experience bad flashbacks to the intensive care unit. I remember some of those visions very clearly and they are not good. Anything can set me off and it is hard because suddenly you are back dying in hospital again.”
Now, Tatton is championing greater awareness of sepsis, urging people to seek medical advice for even minor wounds. He emphasizes the importance of early detection. He said “The word sepsis is much more in people’s vocabulary now than it was. It takes such a small infection that then has these huge consequences. Getting people to ask, ‘could this be sepsis? ’ and get it checked out is so important.”
He warns of the severe outcomes of delayed treatment: “It is not just the risk of dying, but having your hands and feet amputated, being in a coma, your loved ones being told you might die. All of it is preventable if we could get people to question whether they have sepsis.”
