Kate Garraway reveals Derek Draper's sepsis battle
Appearing on Good Morning Britain, Kate Garraway revealed her husband Derek Draper had been placed into intensive care after contracting 'very serious, life-threatening' sepsis.
Credit: @GMB Via Twitter
Video transcript
- Things. How are things at home?
KATE GARRAWAY: Thank you. Yes, thank you. I'm sorry I dramatically disappeared. And I've been here for three weeks now.
- I know, yeah.
KATE GARRAWAY: And it was actually on air on "GMB" on the 9th of July. I remember it because it was my brother's birthday, and I forgot to wish him a happy birthday. But we were on air, and Derek had come out of-- he's been going in and out of hospital for a while for looking at ways to tackle the damage caused by COVID back in 2020. But we haven't really had any sort of medical eruptions. And then he just was really unwell.
He'd come out of hospital the day before and got a phone call from the person who was looking after him saying, right, we're really worried. So I whizzed home, and it just sort of went boom from there. We went-- called an ambulance, went to A&E, and they said he had very severe sepsis, life-threatening sepsis.
- Right.
KATE GARRAWAY: So it was really dramatic. Brilliant work by the A&E, absolutely extraordinary. Because when you've got sepsis, the big challenge is, find the source of infection quickly and get the right antibiotics. And his blood pressure was so low. It was like--
- And did they find it?
KATE GARRAWAY: --50 over 40.
- Did they find the source?
KATE GARRAWAY: Well, by a process of eliminations and questions that a really junior doctor said, what did you think it might be, we knew it wasn't COVID-19 because we'd tested before he'd left the hospital on the Thursday. I said, well, I did wonder if it was a urine infection. But weirdly, we couldn't get anything for a sample. And he-- they just went, [CLAPS] kidneys. And it was one of those questions that--
- Gosh.
KATE GARRAWAY: --was so different from all the technical, it was just like, what was in your mind? And I said that, and it made them look at each other and say, kidneys. And unfortunately, his kidneys were really badly infected, blocked. And the challenge now is to save them.
- Right.
KATE GARRAWAY: So that's where we've been for the last three weeks. Got the sepsis under control.
- So is he still in hospital?
KATE GARRAWAY: Still in hospital, not in intensive care. Waiting for another procedure.
- Right.
KATE GARRAWAY: Looking really good.
- Yeah.
KATE GARRAWAY: So fingers crossed on everything. And one kidney looking really good, just need to look at the other one. And so yeah, he's still in high dependency.
- Well, if.
