Sepsis Dog Lick: Woman Undergoes Quadruple Amputation After Rapid-Onset Infection

Manjit Sangha, 56, has returned home after 32 weeks in hospital and multiple cardiac arrests, following an infection doctors believe may have begun with a sepsis dog lick on a small cut or scratch. Her case, which ended in the amputation of both hands and both legs and the loss of her spleen, is being used by Sangha to warn the public about how quickly sepsis can strike.

Manjit Sangha's hospital stay and return home from Ward 9 at Moseley Hall

Sangha left Ward 9 at Moseley Hall in Birmingham on Wednesday and was greeted by her family in Penn on the Wolverhampton/Staffordshire border. Medics had thought she would almost certainly die at one point during her 32-week stay. Despite that prognosis, she survived and was discharged to begin recovery at home.

Sepsis Dog Lick and doctors' assessment

Doctors have said Sangha's sepsis might have been triggered by something as small as a lick from her dog to a cut or scratch. Sangha has been clear about her motivation in speaking out: she wants to warn others, believing "it could happen to anybody. " What makes this notable is how a seemingly minor contact may have set off a chain of events that overwhelmed her immune system.

Rapid deterioration: symptoms, timeline and cardiac arrests at New Cross Hospital

The illness moved swiftly. Sangha, who worked seven days a week before falling ill, returned home on a Sunday afternoon in July last year feeling unwell; by the following morning she was unconscious. Her hands and feet had become ice-cold, her lips had turned purple and she was struggling to breathe. Her husband, Kam Sangha, described the shock of the turnaround: "Your mind is all over the place. You're thinking 'how can this happen in less than 24 hours?'" He added: "One minute on a Saturday she's playing with the dog, Sunday she's gone to work, Monday night she's in a coma. " While in intensive care at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton, Sangha's heart stopped six times.

Surgical interventions at Russells Hall Hospital and additional complications

Surgeons at Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley later amputated both of Sangha's legs below the knee and both of her hands because the condition had spread. Medical teams also removed her spleen. She battled pneumonia during her admission and developed gallstones that she was told might require further surgery. Sangha described the early days after her collapse: "I didn't know what was happening. The first month I do not remember anything. "

Public health context from the NHS and UK Sepsis Trust

Sepsis is a rare but serious condition in which the body's immune response begins to attack its own tissues and organs. The NHS cautions that sepsis is life-threatening and can be difficult to spot. The UK Sepsis Trust records about 50, 000 sepsis-related deaths in the UK each year. In adults, symptoms can include slurred speech, extreme shivering or muscle pain, severe breathlessness and skin that is mottled or discoloured.

Sangha has said the experience is hard to explain. "Losing your limbs and your hands in a short time period is a very big thing, " she said. "It's very serious and not to be taken lightly. " Her message, grounded in a sequence of concrete events—returning home unwell on a Sunday, unconscious the next morning, six cardiac arrests, amputations and further complications—underscores how rapidly sepsis can escalate from an everyday contact to a life-altering emergency.