Kuan was our healthy and incredibly fit 18-year-old son, who was training passionately to fulfill his dream of playing college football in America. That dream, and our beautiful boy, were taken from us…

Ilse Malfait’s story is one of incredible human strengths, resilience, and perseverance. In May 2020, Ilse's life took an unexpected turn when she discovered a lump in her right breast…

My name is Tess Willemse, I’m from the Netherlands, and I’m 18 years old. This is my story about how I almost lost my life to a ‘lung infection.’…

I felt like Superwoman, strong and invincible! Running my own catering company with my husband, working over 60 hours a week, but never skipping my daily 6:15 am run, and in my free moments playing with my five-year-old daughter. I had just turned 40, but I have never been in better shape. Unbreakable – until July 16th, 2021…

“It all started in Bali, where I lived at the time. After a year, I planned to visit my parents and friends in the Czech Republic. About a month before I left, I contracted Covid-19 (Omicron variant), which knocked my immunity to zero…”

“The diagnosis occurred over a week of back and forth from home to hospital. I woke up 2 nights in a row with debilitating stomach pain. I thought it was food poisoning because by the morning it was gone. By the third day of this happening, I realized it was something more…”

“In the spring of 2013, I had not been feeling quite myself for months. I had been under some heavy stress in both my personal and professional life. I had an infected blemish on my face and reoccurring bronchitis. On May 16th, I was playing outside with my dogs when one accidentally nipped my left hand…”

“My experience with sepsis started after a regular check-up in early 2016 when it was decided to remove what was left of my colon in a procedure that would avoid the need for a stoma. I was operated on in mid-March 2016. After the operation, I started to run a temperature and my blood pressure was falling…”

“Farès had two major pain attacks in the night of his hospitalization, which were not seen as an emergency, while I kept actively requesting the presence of a doctor. Eventually the next morning, Farès had a septic shock…”

“After this routine procedure the doctor told me everything went well and nothing vicious had been found and they would discharge me from the hospital. My husband and I were relieved but when I wanted to use the bathroom before getting dressed, I felt very dizzy and couldn’t hold myself…”

“As a healthcare professional (hepatobiliary surgeon), and as the leader of our national patient safety organization, you think that you have seen it all. Well, that perception had to be re-evaluated the moment I was told: “You tested positive for COVID-19…”

Hadley Rae was the sweetest little baby you could ever meet. She would light up the room with her laugh and smile from the day she was born. Our beautiful “Haddie” provided 8 months and 13 days of joy, love, smiles, and sunshine to her family and two big sisters – until March 2019…

Our dad came down with, what he thought was, the flu. He spent a few days at home trying to kick the sickness. He complained of fever, chills, retching, diarrhea, and waking up in a pool of sweat. He eventually ended up in the local hospital ER due to the symptoms not getting any better…

I was the girl terrified of hospitals. It's ironic that; it was there, I faced the biggest fight of my life, met my true heroes and in nearly losing my tongue, gained a whole new voice and cause for something I previously knew nothing about…

Tom lost his lower arms, lower legs, and half of his face when sepsis struck him out of the blue in December 1999. Nearly twenty years on, he considers the enduring impact of his life transformation…

Initially, I just thought I had an upset stomach, or some sort of bug as the vomiting stopped during the day. However, it had become the evening of the 14th when the vomiting started again, which kept me up all night. After a little bit of sleep I woke up on the morning of the 15th with an unusually sore lower right leg…

It was during her sixth month of pregnancy that Kayleigh suddenly became ill one evening and had to be rushed to a local hospital. What transpired next would forever change her life and the lives of her family members and friends…

In the morning of Friday January 12th 2018, we lost our amazing son Sean to sepsis. He was only 15 years old. Sean was a healthy young man with no underlying health issues. He was an up-and-coming rap artist who wrote and performed all his own material.

On Monday, January 8th, 2018, Sean came home from school and told his Mum he was not feeling too well. He was displaying flu-like symptoms, which were similar to those of a chest infection…

It was Christmas Eve, 2015 and I had some spare time and a chance to knock another job off my to-do list. The garden gate was not closing correctly, so I went out and spent an hour getting it fixed. It was the last DIY job I ever did with two hands. I scraped my hand on a nail and got a minor cut which bled and was washed out but was really just a minor nick, that people working with their hands probably get on a daily basis…

I was rushed to emergency early morning and had an emergency hysterectomy in the evening. The next morning, my large intestine was removed and the doctors informed my sister Debie that I only had a 10% chance to survive. This was reduced to 2% the following day. I was on life support. Doctors thought I would’t make it. I'd been diagnosed with septic shock…

After a weekend of flu-like symptoms in May 2018, Lucy was referred to the hospital on a Monday morning. She was treated for 12 hours for chest pains and breathing difficulties, but with no diagnosis. Following numerous blood tests and X-rays, she had mottling in her legs. Eventually, a CT scan showed fluid around her heart.

Before we knew it, Lucy was rushed to an operating room and had the fluid drained. For a brief moment, she was stable and without pain. But within an hour, she had to be put into an induced coma while they tried to find the cause of what they believed to be sepsis. We had no idea of how serious sepsis could be until this point…

Last year, Mia was a typical 4-year old girl attending Kindergarten, going to swimming practices, and taking gymnastics lessons. Besides colds and occasional bouts of gastro, our family was rarely ill. However, on October 15th, 2017, our lovely girl went from a perfectly happy, active, cheeky, and healthy little girl to critically-ill and in intensive care.

Initially, Mia presented with symptoms of gastro, including vomiting, diarrhea, high temperature, and lethargy on Friday evening. On Saturday morning at a doctor's visit...

In the early hours of July 12th, 2015, I was settling our daughter after she’d woken. As I left her room I banged my elbow quite hard but gave it a rub and went back to bed. An hour or so later, I awoke to golf ball size swelling on my elbow and extreme pain but no wound. Within two hours I was shivering uncontrollably and rocking back and forth screaming for my husband to take me to hospital. It was very early on a Sunday morning and my husband was barely awake as he got our ten-month-old daughter ready and helped me dress. I felt sicker than I’d ever felt before...

I had picked my daughter up from school and the pain had slowly worsened throughout the afternoon. I’d been invited to lunch with a new friend and I just couldn’t sit comfortably thinking I must have hurt my back due to the sudden, uncomfortable back pain. Arriving home with my daughter, I was overtaken by an overwhelming feeling of being so very unwell, feverish and struggling to function.  I had to lay down, thinking if I did I would feel better, leaving my daughter doing her schoolwork after I had attempted to prepare a quick dinner for her (and subsequently burning it!) and as the evening progressed, I eventually realized that I seriously needed to get help as I lay there in bed shivering violently...

On a Thursday afternoon, after spending a few days on the Sunshine Coast with her boyfriend and his family, she came home feeling quite ill and told us that she felt like she was getting the flu. Her Step Mum, promptly gave her some Ibuprofen and water and told her to rest.

Maddy’s Dad took her to a GP the following morning (Friday). She was diagnosed with a respiratory infection and told to keep her fluids up, take over the counter cold and flu medication and rest. The next day, Saturday evening, Maddy was feeling worse, she was complaining that she was short of breath, so her Mother took her to the hospital where she was told she was dehydrated, given fluids, and sent home to rest...

The evening before this catastrophic event, Tom did seem a little ratty and restless. He played a little on the kitchen counter next to me as I cooked supper and seemed to take an enjoyment in throwing pieces of dried spaghetti on the floor and waiting to see my reaction.  He did not want to eat, as much as we tried to encourage him.  He seemed clumsy almost, he hit his head on the dinner table as he struggled to get off my knee.

“He’s coming down with something”, we thought. “Either that or he’s teething”. He settled down to bed with a bottle and a cuddle. There was no fever at that point in the evening. No other signs of anything being seriously wrong. It was after midnight that he awoke with a raging temperature and I was ready for it with suppositories and neurofen...

After a family day that included the movies, dinner, and frozen yogurt, Sue started feeling ill with fever and chills and overall body pain, primarily in her neck and throat. Since her symptoms hadn’t subsided, we went to the emergency room in the very early morning hours of August 8th.

On this initial visit to the ER, Sue presented with a high heart rate, low blood pressure, low urine output, slight dehydration, and rated her pain a 9 out of 10. She was tested for strep throat and when the rapid strep test came back negative, the ER doctor diagnosed her with a viral infection, said she would feel worse before she felt better, and prescribed cough syrup with codeine. We didn’t know it at the time, but Sue’s vital signs were critical red flags that she was very ill, but the doctor failed to recognize and act on them...

In April 2016, I had a life threatening and life changing experience as a result of an infection in my index finger. One week previously I had seen a physician who diagnosed a Cellulitis infection on my finger and prescribed an antibiotic to treat it. Unfortunately for me, this physician did not give me any information about what I should do if the antibiotic he prescribed was not successful in treating this infection. To make a long story short a week later I collapsed at home and was rushed to the hospital with a ruptured abdominal aneurysm and in septic shock. I survived an event with a higher than 90% fatality rate...