Fully vaccinated British lawmaker Craig Mackinlay has undergone quadruple amputation surgery after his immune system was unable to deal with an infection, causing an “extremely rare” reaction which turned his hands and feet black and his body “a very strange shade of blue.”
Mackinlay, who promoted the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine to his constituents during the pandemic, said he was stunned by how quickly the infection became life-threatening. According to doctors, the MP was suffering from sepsis and had only a five percent chance of survival.
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During an interview with the BBC, Mackinlay said that he started to feel ill and within 30 minutes his whole body had turned “a very strange blue. My whole body, top to bottom, ears, everything, blue,” he said in an interview released on Wednesday, describing the symptoms of septic shock.
During the pandemic, Mackinlay urged his constituents to get vaccinated with the experimental Covid-19 vaccines, describing the rollout in heroic terms such as “the cavalry coming over the hill.”
Mackinlay also praised healthcare workers for their role in vaccinating as many people as possible during the pandemic, presenting certificates to Thanet vaccine center volunteers in November 2021.
Fast forward three years and the MP is suffering the kind of severe health consequences shared by many people around the world in the wake of the devastating Covid-19 vaccine rollout.
Sepsis is the body’s extreme response to an infection that is not dealt with effectively by the immune system. It can be caused by any type of infection, even a minor one, and occurs when germs enter the body and multiply, causing illness and organ and tissue damage.
The body essentially begins shutting down and the life-threatening condition requires urgent medical care to prevent organ damage and a painful death.
According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, in some cases, sepsis is not properly identified because it can come with a wide range of symptoms such as confusion or disorientation, shortness of breath, high heart rate, fever, shivering or feeling very cold, extreme pain or discomfort, and clammy or sweaty skin.
Mackinlay was put into an induced coma with multiple organ failures, and told GB News that there is a period of three weeks from which his memory has been completely wiped.
When he woke up, he found that his hands and feet had turned black.
“I could see these things were probably lost,” he said.
On November 30, Mackinlay recorded a video from his hospital bed in which he showed the damage to his limbs.
“It’s caused the complete death of my hands and also my feet,” he said, describing them as “gnarled, dry, dessicated” and revealing that he was due to undergo a quadruple amputation the next day.
“The reality is I probably shouldn’t have survived this far,” said Mackinlay.
“The grim reaper let me survive, but he’s taken his payment in four of my limbs,” he adds.
Mackinlay’s wife, Kati Mackinlay, told GB News that doctors told her he had only a 5 per cent chance of survival, but she remained hopeful.
“I never said goodbye, I never thought that’s it for Craig,” she said.
“I always knew that Craig would pull through and he did.”
The operation, in which his arms were amputated from the elbow and his legs from the knee, took about four to five hours, Mackinlay told GB News.
Mackinlay received a standing ovation in parliament on Wednesday as he returned to the House of Commons after undergoing a quadruple amputation following the infection.
