respiratory infection

Harry Lownds was a little over a week into his final semester at the University of Sussex when he came down with what seemed at first to be a fairly standard viral upper respiratory tract infection. 

Over the next couple of days his symptoms worsened and he found himself bed-bound with a high temperature and what he took to be flu. At this point he went to his GP surgery, where he was assessed and given standard analgesia which lowered his temperature to within the normal range.  He was advised to rest and take paracetamol to keep his temperature down.

His mum drove down to Brighton the next day to bring Harry home to rest, in the expectation that some family pampering would help him get over the bug.  The next afternoon he was in bed, seemingly feeling a little better and chilling out, listening to a favourite comedy podcast, when he went into septic shock – the most acute form of sepsis – suffering a catastrophic collapse in blood pressure that led to cardiac arrest. 

Family members found him unresponsive a short while later and gave him CPR.  A First Response team was on the ground within minutes, followed by the regional air ambulance.  They took him to the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford where the trauma crash team worked on him for another hour, to no avail.

The only comfort to his family was that the leader of the medical team that had sought to revive Harry told them that he wouldn’t have known what happened and didn’t suffer.  Harry was just 21, fit and otherwise in excellent health.

Charity Comment 

Harry’s story – told here by his family – is tragic and deeply poignant. 

We are so grateful to the Lownds family for sharing their story in this way in order to raise awareness of sepsis, and for the huge support that they have offered this charity and its research and awareness work since 2021. Via multiple fundraising challenges and events the family has raised over £7200 for Sepsis Research FEAT to date, simultaneously supporting a memorial fund at the University of Sussex in Harry’s name. They have also supported initiatives such as this charity’s legacy fundraising programme. In 2023 they wrote, 

“The research funded by Sepsis Research FEAT is developing new means of diagnosing and treating this devastating medical condition, offering the prospect of sparing others the experience of suddenly and unexpectedly losing a loved one like our 21 year old son Harry. Please join us in supporting this vital work by including Sepsis Research FEAT as a beneficiary in your will.” 

Harry’s story is an example of how rapidly and devastatingly a previously fit and healthy young person’s condition can deteriorate as sepsis sets in. And how any seemingly minor infection can lead to sepsis. 

You can find out more about sepsis and the common signs and symptoms here and support the family’s latest fundraiser here