'I thought I had flu after Greek holiday but when I woke up I'd lost both legs'

A dad-of-two who went from being fit and healthy and running 5k a day to being "broken, battered and confused" after losing his legs due to sepsis has bravely opened up about his traumatic ordeal which saw him "not far away from death".

Matt Waters, 51, said his entire perspective on life has changed after all he has been through over the last year-and-a-half.

In November 2022, Matt and his family had just returned from a holiday in Greece when he began feeling unwell, suffering symptoms similar to that of flu.

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"I was having shivers and muscle pain, but nothing that would make me think I was in any immediate danger," he said.

Within two days, Matt had begun to turn blue. His wife Alison phoned an ambulance, and he was rushed to hospital.

He said: "They started cutting off my clothes and talking about putting me in a medically induced coma. It was pretty scary. You're expecting them to give you a few tablets and get you out of there, but my body was not far away from death. The doctors didn't think I'd make it through the night and many subsequent nights afterwards.

"It turns out that I'd picked up pneumonia on the way home from Greece, and my body wasn't able to fight it, because my spleen was compromised, and that affects your immune system. It transitioned into sepsis. My blood was clotting in my system simultaneously, which leads to lots of bad things. My kidneys were shredded and I sustained acute injuries to my liver. While I was in an induced coma I suffered several heart attacks."

Matt, who was born and raised in New Waltham near Grimsby, but now lives in Devon with his wife and two daughters, was in an induced coma for 40 days in total. When he woke up, he learned that his legs, two index fingers and part of his ear had been amputated as a result of the sepsis.

"When I came round I couldn't speak, I was pretty delirious from the drugs I was on, and I had no legs. Trying to make sense of that reality was pretty brutal, because I thought I'd only gone in to hospital with the flu," he said.

Matt was in hospital for a further three weeks, and was subsequently discharged and sent home. Tragically, just six weeks later, his dad passed away. Four weeks after that, his dog and former "running partner" died.

He said: "I've had a blessed life and all of a sudden everything that could go wrong was going wrong and my world was black, I didn't want to be here anymore. I'd gone from a fit and healthy person running my own world to being broken, battered and confused, and things were as black as they could possibly be. I needed as much help as I could get."

Through a charity local to him, Arc Axminster, which provides low-cost counselling for people struggling with their mental health, Matt was able to access help and support to cope with the trauma of what he had been through and learn how to adapt to an entirely new reality, and is still seeing a counsellor today.

Matt also began working with veterans Simon Burgess and Mick Hart, who helped him train and re-condition his body to prepare him for wearing prosthetic legs.

Speaking about the process, Matt said: "They were used to working with amputees and started re-conditioning and training my body. You need good abs and muscles on your body to deal with everything being an amputee throws at you.

"It took 12 months for my scars to heal on my stumps before I could put prosthetic legs on. Before that I was completely reliant on a wheelchair and other people to drive me places.

"It was brutal. I was used to running through the woods with my dogs, and all of a sudden I can't walk around my house. When you're learning to use prosthetics it hurts like hell, because your stumps have no cushioning on them. Every step hurts, but you've just got to go through it, it's just a case of sucking it up.

"Now I wear prosthetics every day. Your stumps get used to the discomfort and that discomfort lessens, so every day you make progress. My walking is getting better all the time."

Recently, Matt raised an incredible £24,000 for the Arc charity by walking the 5km course of Seaton Parkrun. He is also working to raise awareness of sepsis and the UK Sepsis Trust charity.

"Sepsis isn't really understood and people need to be made aware of it. With Arc, they get no support from the NHS and support loads of people in my community, so any awareness I can raise for them is really important," he said.

Several months on from the traumatic ordeal, and Matt said he has gained a new perspective on life, viewing his condition as a "superpower".

"Once you've decided you want to live, you've got to come up with a plan to start putting things back together, and once that plan is in place you've got to live it, then you've got to start getting better and stronger.

"You can recover yourself from these moments in your life, and things don't remain as black as they were. You can build back what you lost. It gives you a new perspective on everything, and it becomes a superpower."

You can still donate to Matt's fundraiser by clicking here.