I nearly died of sepsis after cutting my nails

A dad says he almost died from sepsis – after scratching himself while cutting his nails.

Tatton Spiller, 43, developed the life-threatening condition in June 2022 after getting a “very small cut” – which put him in intensive care for five days.

He says he went to a minor injuries unit after the initial wound – caused by nail clippers – but was told to take paracetamol, he claims.

His fiancée was out at the time so he then went home alone – when he got into a “right state.”

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Politics writer Tatton, from Whitstable, Kent, 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.”

“I went back to where I had been sent away 24 hours ago and they took one look at me and called 999.”

Once the ambulance arrived Tatton says he was taken straight to intensive care, where his memory became hazy – and the hallucinations begun.

Tatton, who also has bipolar disorder, says the infection convinced him it was 1966, he was in a cinema, and that a tiger was in his hospital room.

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He added: “I was hallucinating, I didn’t know where I was. I had no relation to reality at all.”

It was only when fiancée Katie, who he has been with for six years, could finally visit that he snapped out of the haze and was moved to a recovery ward.

Since the incident Tatton has fully recovered physically – but still battles with mental health from the traumatic events.

He was unable to cut his nails in the first few months after going home, asking his fiancée to do it for him – but he says he has now moved past this.

Tatton, who founded the popular website Simple Politics, said: “I was pretty unlucky to get it but having survived it. I am a very lucky man.”

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“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 fighting for more awareness for the condition, encouraging others to get their cuts examined – no matter how small.

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.”

“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.”

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