Duncan Bannatyne: My daughter could have died

23 March 2018

Duncan Bannatyne has spoken out about his fears that his daughter could have died when she mistook sepsis for a hangover.

Duncan Bannatyne

Abi Bannatyne, 34, originally confused the symptoms of the life-threatening condition as the effects of partying too hard at a friend's wedding in France, and battled through the illness for two days before finally seeking medical help.

Her former 'Dragon's Den' star dad Duncan told Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford while appearing on ITV's 'This Morning' with Abi on Friday (23.03.18), that he believes if she had left it any longer before calling 999, she would have died.

Duncan, 69, said: "When you hear a word like that [sepsis], I'm not sure I've heard it before, so immediately you Google it and it's horrific... I think she was probably only a few hours away from dying, because if she hadn't phoned at that time, in a few more hours I think it would have been too late."

Recalling the horrific ordeal, the mum-of-two said:"It got to this point, on Tuesday night, about four o'clock in the morning, where I just had this overwhelming feeling that I was dying. And I can't explain it because I don't know what it feels like, but I just felt like I was dying. I just knew something wasn't right."

Abi is trying to raise awareness of the immune condition - when the body's extreme response to an infection is to attack itself - and revealed that her only symptoms were sweating and feeling nauseous.

She said: "It was sweating, just feeling really sick. I didn't actually start throwing up until much later."

Recalling how she dismissed the illness as a hangover, Abi explained: "It was on the Monday, after I'd got back from the weekend, I'd gone into work, and I thought, 'God, I'm really not feeling great, I must still be struggling from the weekend,' but it just got worse and worse. I still just kept thinking it's been a mad weekend, I'm just exhausted.

"I went home. I managed on the Monday at work, and then on the Tuesday, I think I got to about lunchtime, and then I was like, 'I'm going to have to go home.' So I went home, and as soon as I got home I got into bed, and that was it, from that moment I couldn't lift my head up, I felt like I couldn't do anything. At this point I thought maybe it's flu, it can't still be a hangover."

Asked why she thinks she contracted sepsis, Abi said: "The reason I had it - I mean there's many different reasons you can get it - but the week before I became ill I had a water infection, which I did have antibiotics for, but it obviously hadn't cleared it up, and the infection just spread from there."