Cardiff student’s sore throat escalates to sepsis after night out
A first-year Cardiff University student developed sepsis from a throat infection after initially dismissing her symptoms, but recovered after prompt hospital treatment.
Elle Black, a 21-year-old first-year student at Cardiff University, woke after a night out feeling ill and attributed a sore throat to a hangover, taking ibuprofen before sleeping. The following morning she was exhausted, feverish and unable to eat, prompting a private GP appointment that resulted in a laryngitis diagnosis and antibiotics. Her condition worsened into a quinsy, a pus-filled tonsillar abscess, which triggered sepsis and led to her admission to University Hospital of Wales, where she was triaged within 15 minutes.
After two days of care she made a full recovery, crediting rapid medical response and her own insistence that she might have sepsis. Black now campaigns for greater awareness of sepsis symptoms and will run the London Marathon for Sepsis Research.
Why it matters
The case highlights how quickly a common throat infection can become life-threatening if symptoms are ignored.
In this story
