Symptoms of Septic Shock

The last stage of sepsis is septic shock, and the symptoms include:

• Unable to stand up
• Strong sleepiness and great difficulty staying awake
• There is a major change in mental status, such as extreme confusion

An Inmate in a County Jail Outside Texas Dies of Sepsis

In late May 2023, the Chief Medical Examiner in a county outside Texas released the autopsy results of a woman who had been incarcerated in a county jail. The autopsy revealed that sepsis was the probable cause of the 40-year-old woman’s death, which occurred in April 2023. Also, the woman had been suffering from a urinary tract infection and kidney stones. In addition, she had wounds on her stomach and the front of her right thigh, per the medical examiner’s report.

The jail indicated that she had suffered an injury from a fall at the hospital. At the time of her death, she was at a medical facility being monitored while awaiting transfer to a different hospital.

The jail doesn’t mention the infections that the medical examiner had found during the autopsy. There was no further information, such as details from jail records. But the fact that they mentioned an injury but no particular treatments suggests that antibiotics were possibly not administered. It is reasonable to consider that a lack of antibiotics may have resulted in the development of sepsis.

Learn more in Part 1, Part 2, and this continuing series.

Helping Texas jail detainees and their families with resources is one of the purposes of this website. There is no intention of suggesting that people or organizations have been involved in misdeeds.

–Guest Contributor