Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay has candidly opened up on his health battle with sepsis after admitting he is “extremely lucky to be alive”.
In September, the MP for South Thanet said he was taken to hospital and “placed into an induced coma with multiple organ failures”.
In an exclusive GB News interview, Mackinlay has spoken out on his road to recovery and how he has been impacted by the ordeal.
Sepsis, also called septicaemia or blood poisoning, occurs when the immune system overreacts to an infection.
Craig Mackinlay has candidly opened up on his condition
GB NEWS
The MP told GB News Political Editor Christopher Hope that a loss of blood supply to the limbs caused them to “turn black” while his body “went blue” as he laid bare the shocking realities of his condition.
WATCH: THE FULL INCREDIBLE INTERVIEW
“Everything was starting to shut down”, he said.
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“My wife was told that they rarely see people with this amount of illness in the hospital and to perhaps prepare for the worst.
“You end up with a lot of blood clots in your extremities, and they call it your ‘socks and gloves’.
“Your socks are your feet and your gloves are your hands.
“It also affected the front of my face. You can see quite a lot of scarring because of a loss of blood supply in the front of my mouth.
Craig Mackinlay said his hands were clenched
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“It caused some damage to teeth and a bit of scarring, they had to take off some dead skin.”
Shocking images of Mackinlay in a hospital bed show the 67-year-old peering down at his gangrenous limbs before they were amputated.
It was clear to him that his arms and legs were “probably lost” at an early stage as large patches of dead tissue emerged.
“I could see these things were probably lost”, he said.
“My fingers were fixed into a clenched fist. I could move a couple of toes in my left leg. They could have maybe saved a bit of a foot but my surgeon said I would be far better having them off.
“I was told I could have prosthetics and I would walk far better with them.”
Doctors were even weighing up the possibility of issuing a do-not-resuscitate order for Mackinlay, which would have meant that if his heart stopped in hospital, his healthcare team would not have tried to restart it.
The MP said the conversations “happened in the early stages” of his stay at Medway Maritime Hospital.
Craig Mackinlay's wife felt as though she was living through a nightmare
GB NEWS
Mackinlay’s wife emotionally opened up about the anguish she felt during a tumultuous period for her family.
Fighting back tears, she told GB News that doctors had given the MP a five per cent chance of survival as he underwent treatment.
WATCH: THE FULL INCREDIBLE INTERVIEW
“We didn’t know what the cause was. None of the tests were showing any bacteria and that was after six days”, she said.
“Then we were told Craig would only have five per cent chance of surviving.
“But I must admit, I never said ‘goodbye’, I never thought that was it for Craig.
“In the first two days, it was difficult to deal with the idea of, is it really happening or is it a nightmare?
“Then the reality hits after about 48 hours that this is not something you can wake up from.
“I turned deep and I always knew Craig would pull through, and he did. It became clear there would be some kind of limb loss, that was clear after about seven to ten days.”