Claire McCormack, 47, died hours after falling seriously unwell (Image: Supplied)
A supremely fit mother who believed she was battling food poisoning tragically passed away within days after a deadly sepsis infection caused her organs to fail.
Claire McCormack, 47, a senior staff nurse in infectious diseases at Forth Valley Royal Hospital, deteriorated rapidly after waking up feeling seriously unwell on June 23 last year.
Her heartbroken daughter, Steph Burgoyne, 20, revealed that the family initially assumed Claire had contracted a stomach bug or food poisoning after attending a neighbour’s barbecue just two days prior.
Yet within hours of arriving at A&E, Claire had become delirious, her skin had turned purple, and doctors were left with no choice but to place her in an induced coma as she suffered multi-organ failure brought on by sepsis.
Steph recalled how her mother – affectionately nicknamed “Turbo” by colleagues on account of her boundless energy – never regained consciousness and passed away six days later, reports the Daily Record.
She said: “My mum called in sick to work on the Monday morning as she’d been up through the night with a tummy bug and was generally unwell. She had been totally fine the day before, everything was normal.
Claire McCormack, 47, was a senior staff nurse in infectious diseases at Forth Valley Royal Hospital, (Image: Supplied)
“She had been to a neighbour’s BBQ on the Saturday, so the only thing we could think was she might have food poisoning.
“I was working from home and kept checking on her, but by 10am she was in severe pain so I called our doctors. They advised me to call the emergency services and in the end I decided to take her to AandE at her own hospital.” Claire, from Falkirk, was seen immediately upon arriving at hospital and taken for a series of tests, yet medics were unable to pinpoint the cause of her sudden decline.
Steph, an apprentice IT consultant, said: “I started calling my gran and stepdad Sandy while they did tests as she was quickly getting worse. We were just racking our brains trying to think if something had happened through the week that could have caused this.”
Within hours, medical staff took the decision to place Claire into an induced coma in intensive care and commence dialysis.
Steph said: “My mum was not reacting to any medication. She went into multi-organ failure and I just couldn’t comprehend when a doctor told me that she could die.
“In the blink of an eye she had gone from having a normal weekend, dancing at a BBQ, to fighting for her life. It made no sense.”
Claire McCormack, 47, died hours after falling seriously unwell (Image: Supplied)
By that evening, doctors had begun to suspect sepsis — a potentially fatal condition in which the body’s immune response to infection turns on its own organs.
Despite exhaustive treatment, Claire’s condition continued to deteriorate and she passed away on Sunday, June 29.
Steph said: “They tried so many different meds and treatments but she just didn’t respond. We later found out she didn’t have a spleen, which made it very hard for her to survive.”
Specialists were unable to establish precisely how Claire contracted sepsis and concluded it was “very unlikely” to have originated from her work at the hospital. Steph added: “She spent her whole career caring for others and had huge knowledge of sepsis, which makes losing her to it even harder to understand.
“My mum was the life and soul of the party, the liveliest person you could meet. She was fit, she went to the gym.
“It just underlines how sepsis is a silent killer that does not discriminate, no matter your age or health.”
Steph revealed that the family – including stepdad Sandy and gran Denise – are still finding it incredibly difficult to come to terms with how rapidly Claire was taken from them.
They have since launched a fundraising campaign for Sepsis Research FEAT in her honour, while also working to raise awareness of the condition.
She said: “I’ve now got a life ahead of me of milestones where my mum won’t be there. But the whole family is suffering.
“We’re trying to turn something so horrible into something positive, because that’s what she would have wanted.
“I would plead with anyone reading this to familiarise yourself with the signs of sepsis – recognising them early could genuinely save a life.”
For more information about sepsis and signs of symptoms visit, here.