A mother from Swansea has spoken out about her near-death experience after contracting sepsis and gangrene from a shaving cut that became infected in a hot tub. Hayley Thomas, 46, accidentally cut her right leg with a razor hours before entering a friend's hot tub on a bank holiday weekend in May.
The following day, she woke up covered in painful red rashes that felt like her skin was burning. Despite a course of antibiotics, over the next nine days she developed large oozing sores across her entire body. A biopsy at Morriston Hospital revealed she had contracted sepsis from bacteria in the hot tub water, which entered her bloodstream through the 2mm cut.
As her skin began to fall off, doctors prepared her for the possibility of surgically removing large areas of infected skin. All four limbs were at risk if the wounds worsened. 'When they said I was on standby for theatre, I didn't really think about the fact that that meant they'd be cutting away parts of my body,' she said. 'I just begged them to save my life.'
Doctors managed to save her skin and limbs with a 21-day course of antibiotics, and after three weeks in hospital she was discharged. However, she has been left permanently scarred with discoloured patches of skin. Hayley has vowed never to enter a hot tub again and is grateful her five-year-old son Justin John, who was also in the tub, did not fall ill.
Hayley contracted a pseudomonas infection from waterborne bacteria that thrives between 25°C and 32°C, common hot tub temperatures. When entering an open wound, the bacteria can cause gangrene and septicaemia. Her case was so extreme that her wounds were photographed for medical training purposes.
'I nearly lost my life, and the fact I'm still here has left me feeling so thankful for every single day I get to spend with my son,' she said. 'Every moment that I'm alive watching him grow up is more precious now than ever, and I'll never take that for granted again.'
