Hi there! Thank you for your question. Allow to explain briefly about sepsis and septic shock. it is important to be able to differentiate between :

1. SIRS (systemic inflammatory response syndrome) – systemic clinical response to an unknown source.
2. Sepsis – systemic clinical response to infection
3. Severe sepsis – sepsis plus organ dysfunction
4. Septic shock – severe sepsis plus hypotension (low pressure) despite fluids being given

• Sepsis and septic shock are medical emergency. The golden hour of management is with within 1 hour. This is because with septic shock or sepsis, the risk of death increases by the hour. There are a couple of symptoms that will be present in addition to the symptoms of the source infection; severe hypotension (low blood pressure), cold, clammy skin, coma, loss of consciousness, oedema (swelling causing by excess water at organs), shortness of breath, reduced urine or no urine output at all, bleeding from the mouth or anus (GI bleeding) and paralytic ileus (patient will have stomach pain).

• The most common sources of sepsis in adults are respiratory infection, urinary tract infection and infections within the abdominal cavity. If septic shock is suspected, doctor will take blood cultures, take full blood count, take lactate levels, check for urinary output, give oxygen, give IV fluids and give IV antibiotics.
  So I’m unable to identify if she had septic shock through your description alone, it could have been just the UTI or sepsis.

• I would also need her vitals (heart rate, blood pressure, temperature and oxygen saturation level) and observe her condition at that moment, which I’m sure the doctors did at that time. To answer your second question, yes sepsis and septic shock is fatal. The death rate is around 20-55% and it increases with the severity. Duration of shock before the initiation of effective antibiotic therapy is the critical determinant of survival in septic shock.

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