(WSVN) - An English man is lucky to be alive after he nearly died from sepsis that he contracted from biting his nails.
According to the Sun, 28-year-old Luke Hanoman began complaining that he wasn’t feeling well after he bit the skin on the side of his nail.
For about a week, the father of two experienced flu-like symptoms.
“I had cold sweats, I was shaking, and then going hot. And then my finger started swelling up and I had this unbearable throbbing,” he told the Sun. “I thought I could just sleep it off. I went to bed on Friday night and woke up at 2 p.m. the next day.”
Hanoman said his mother ultimately checked on him and called a health service hotline, who then told him that he needed to get to the hospital immediately.
“My mom raced me down to hospital. The next thing I knew I was on a stretcher with a drip in my arm,” Hanoman said.
By this point, Hanoman reportedly had red lines all over his body – a common sign an infection is spreading – and a high temperature.
Hanoman was later diagnosed with sepsis and spent four days being treated in the hospital, where doctors told him he was lucky to be alive. He was reportedly close to septic shock.
Sepsis is a potentially life-threatening complication of an infection, the Mayo Clinic says, occurring when chemicals released into the bloodstream to fight the infection trigger inflammatory responses throughout the body.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, symptoms of sepsis include a fever, shortness of breath, clammy or sweaty skin, extreme pain or discomfort and shivering
“I knew nothing about sepsis before this. I just thought I had a high temperature and maybe a virus,” Hanoman said. “I don’t like taking time off work and just tried to carry on. I guess that’s the dangerous bit. A lot of people would do the same.”
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