Sophie Lanigan woke up with a high temperature on a Sunday morning in December 2022. Just 36 hours later, the schoolgirl was on a ventilator, fighting for her life having developed sepsis.

Lanigan, accompanied by her parents Laura and Keith, spoke on Monday at the launch of the HSE’s five-year sepsis strategy, which was published to coincide with Sepsis Awareness Month.

The 16-year-old, from Blanchardstown in Dublin, told The Irish Times that what had started out as Strep-A led to sepsis – and the then-sixth-class pupil having to have her hands and feet amputated.

Sophie had a high temperature on the Sunday and stayed home from school on the Monday, as her temperature remained high and she was vomiting. Her mother took her to see a GP, and from there she was brought to Temple Street Hospital by ambulance.

The then 12-year-old was put on a ventilator, but her body was in septic shock and her organs were already failing. She was transferred to Crumlin children’s hospital. Her family later found out that she had contracted Strep-A, which led to sepsis.

“The medication that they had to give me to save my life, and to like save all my organs, stops the blood flow to my hands and my feet,” she said.

Sophie said this meant the medical team “didn’t really have much of a choice but to amputate” her hands and feet.

Life since then has been “really tough”, Sophie said, but she has “learned to do most things again” such as writing and drawing, which she loves to do. She is able to walk with the use of prosthetics.

She attended the strategy launch to “spread awareness” of sepsis and post-sepsis syndrome by telling her story. She recently visited Dáil Éireann to do likewise.

The HSE’s sepsis strategy for 2026-2030 focuses on areas including prevention, improving treatment and support for survivors, and research. There were almost 12,000 cases of sepsis and septic shock in Irish hospitals last year, with the death rate from confirmed cases standing at 21.2 per cent.

Michael O’Dwyer, clinical lead of the HSE Sepsis Programme, said the strategy was “vitally important”, as it puts a structure in place for dealing with sepsis and takes account of international best practice.

He said the strategy “takes a real steer from the patients who’ve been affected by sepsis and their families, and what we can do better”.

O’Dwyer said the symptoms of sepsis can include slurred speech or confusion, extreme temperature or pain, low urine output, skin changes, shortness of breath and feeling like you are going to die.

“You don’t have to have all of them, and sometimes you don’t have any of them. It’s a very varied set of symptoms,” he said.

“The important thing is to recognise that your family member or that somebody that you’re caring for just isn’t themselves and they have an infection.”

Minster for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said she was “delighted to see that post-sepsis syndrome, in particular, is included as part of the strategy”.

“Sepsis is a priority for the department and for the HSE,” she said. “Staff are constantly striving to improve the detection and treatment of patients with sepsis, and this strategy puts real form on that in a real direction and real awareness of it.”

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Kim Wyse, of the Irish Sepsis Foundation, said raising awareness is “incredibly important”.

“We’ve come on so much in the last couple of years with regards to the signs and symptoms, but, you know, there’s still so much more educating and more awareness we can be bringing to the public,” she said.

Wyse said sepsis kills more people than prostate cancer and breast cancer. “Timing is everything … every hour counts.”