A ‘fit and healthy’ young man was forced to have both of his legs amputated just days before his 21st birthday — after his flu-like symptoms turned out to be sepsis.
Levi Dewy was left in an induced coma with just a 30% chance of survival after being struck down with the life-threatening condition.
In December 2022, the active 20-year-old, who loved playing football, first fell ill with flu-like symptoms and began taking over-the-counter medications.
However, mum Lara was concerned that his ‘breathing wasn’t right’, so took him to hospital after his condition failed to improve and ‘mother’s intuition’ raised red flags.
‘He was dosed up on cold and flu tablets but he had a high temperature that wasn’t cooling and he was really drowsy, with no appetite,’ she says. ‘He just wasn’t my Levi.’
Her suspicions were right, and former JCB welder Levi went into septic shock and suffered multiple organ failure at Royal Derby Hospital, where medics found he was suffering from pneumococcal pneumonia and sepsis.
After being transferred to Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, he was put into the induced coma and given Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation treatment, where his blood was pumped into an artificial lung to be oxygenated and returned to his body.
But despite appearing to improve initially, his condition continued to deteriorate, and Levi’s mum and dad, Neil, were given a terrifying prognosis.
‘It all happened so quickly,’ Lara recalls. ‘We were told to get home and get some rest and then we got a phone call telling us we needed to get there quickly because he was deteriorating.
‘We rushed to be with him and that’s when they told us they didn’t know if he was going to make it through the night… It was horrific.’
Doctors then told the distraught parents their son would need surgery to amputate both legs below the knee, in a desperate effort to save him.
Thankfully it was a success and Levi recovered from the infection, but while he woke up feeling lucky to be alive, the now 23-year-old says ‘nothing could prepare him’ for how much his life would change.
Levi, of Willington, Derbyshire, says: ‘I woke up and Christmas had passed, it was like my life was flipped upside down.
‘I was relying on my family to tell me what had happened, it was such a blur.
‘It was really difficult because I nearly died and I am so grateful to be here but I had to wrap my head around spending the rest of my life without my legs.’
In the aftermath, Levi found it difficult to come to terms with his reduced mobility, saying his home ‘didn’t really feel like home’ because he now has to live in the front room.
He continues: ‘I couldn’t get changed by myself or even sit up and because I lost my feet I had to relearn how to drive again with my hands. It’s those things people can’t really understand.’
‘I am so lucky to have amazing support and I am so thankful that I am here, but getting sepsis has completely changed my life.’
Lara and Neil said they had very little knowledge of what sepsis was, and they were shocked to find out it meant Levi’s organs were shutting down.
‘We had no idea how bad it could be,’ Lara says.
‘I thought it was something that only affected older people, or something you got from a cut, so when I saw him in the hospital bed and he was a mottled colour and his legs were blue, you could see where the sepsis had got hold of him. I’d never seen anything like it in my life.’
Neil adds: ‘What we have learned is that sepsis affects younger people differently to older people.
‘With older people, because their immune systems are more vulnerable you can see the symptoms more easily, but because Levi was fit and healthy, his immune system was masking his symptoms until it got to a point where his body could no longer cope and he deteriorated rapidly.
‘Please familiarise yourself with the symptoms so you know what to look out for.’
Dr Alina Paunescu, emergency medicine consultant and trust sepsis clinical lead at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust, explains that although sepsis affects people of all ages, very young children and elderly patients are more at risk after an infection due to a weakened immune system.
‘Sadly, Levi’s story is not unusual,’ she explains.
‘As sepsis is caused by a dysregulated response to infection, it is not rare for young patients to develop sepsis.
‘This may occur if they contract an aggressive virus or bacteria, they receive inappropriate antibiotics for what initially appears to be a minor infection, or have underlying conditions that compromise their immune system, so it is important to know what signs to look out for and when to seek medical help.’