A dad has had both of his legs amputated as a result of a tiny cut on his hand.

Darren Spence cut his hand on a machine used to crush cardboard at work.

He was working at a B&M warehouse, and a week later started to become “extremely ill”.

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The 45-year-old Northumberland man was rushed to the A&E department at Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital, before being transferred to Freeman Hospital in Newcastle where he was given emergency treatment.

It became clear that Darren had developed sepsis and was placed in an induced coma.

But shockingly, he woke up three days later to discover that both of his legs were turning black and he had no feeling in them – they were amputated a month later.

Speaking to Chronicle Live, he said: “I feel grateful to still be alive – I knew what sepsis was but I didn't know the symptoms.

“It was a shock that it could happen from a cut, and it's shocked everybody that I have told.

“It all started with a cut on my hand, it was a total accident. About a week later, I woke up feeling absolutely terrible – I started vomiting, I had aches and I had diarrhoea. I felt like my heart was going to pop out of my chest.

The next day I came downstairs saying 'Aimee (his partner) I think I need to go to hosp' – I couldn't get the word hospital out. At that point I thought I was having a stroke.”

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Darren, who is now back at work in an office-based role, also recalled the moment he knew he was going to lose his legs.

Despite doctors claiming they could initially save them, he was already “prepared” for them to go.

“I was starting to not be able to feel them at all,” he explained.

Having lost both legs below the knee, he is now adapting to live in a wheelchair, and wants to “get on with my life”.

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He said: “I feel very lucky to have survived something like this that's why I have taken it as well as I have.

“Sometimes I do get upset a little, but I just pull myself around and say you need to give your head a shake – it could have been a hell of a lot worse.”

A GoFundMe has been set up by Darren's sister Leanne Charlton to help raise funds for mobility aides.

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