Even a minor cut can lead to sepsis. Know the signs to help save lives

What starts as a small cut could turn into life-threatening sepsis.

Each year, approximately 270,000 people in the United States die of sepsis. Sepsis happens when your body’s response to an infection goes into overdrive, which can lead to tissue damage, organ failure, or even death.

Any type of infection can kick off sepsis, but bacterial infections are the most common. Even incidents like mosquito bites, tattoos, and urinary tract infections can lead to sepsis. Sepsis is a medical emergency that requires immediate care.

In fact, chances of survival drop by 8% every hour that passes without treatment in extreme cases, called septic shock.

What is sepsis?

Sepsis is the immune system's inappropriate response to an infection. The response could be too strong, too weak, or out of balance. The inappropriate response can end up harming the body.

Common sources of sepsis include respiratory infections, skin breaks, and urinary tract infections. People at highest risk of sepsis include:

The most serious complication of sepsis is septic shock, which is when blood pressure drops very low and oxygen can’t reach the organs. This is life-threatening and needs immediate care.

Signs of sepsis

Sepsis can happen to anyone. Knowing the signs and acting fast can save your life—or the life of someone you love. Use the acronym TIME to remember the signs of sepsis:

T: Temperature

A temperature above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 Celsius) -- or a temperature that drops.

I: Infection

Sepsis occurs when your body is fighting an infection. That could include an infection from a cut or recent surgery. It could also be from a respiratory or urinary tract infection.

M: Mental decline

Sleepiness and confusion are signs of sepsis. Often for older adults, sepsis looks like sudden mental decline.

E: Extremely ill

People with sepsis often describe their symptoms as the worst they’ve ever experienced. For example, the worst sore throat or the worst stomach pain. Pain that’s extreme or unusual for you is a reason to get care.

If you notice these symptoms, don’t wait—call 911 or get emergency care immediately. A sudden drop in blood pressure is a sign of septic shock.

M Health Fairview is improving sepsis care

A 2020 study found that one in four people with sepsis in the hospital don’t survive. That wasn’t OK with Amy Cho, MD, an emergency medicine provider, and Ronald Reilkoff, MD, director of critical care at M Health Fairview and an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

More patients are going home thanks to M Health Fairview teams who made sepsis treatment a priority.

“For sepsis care, it takes everybody,” Reilkoff said. “Sepsis care takes both individual and system approaches, and everyone has to be aligned to achieve the best outcomes for our patients.  It takes input from executives in the C-suite down to the health unit coordinators. It has to be part of the culture, and everyone has to be on the same page.”

Six M Health Fairview hospitals have been recognized as Five-Star recipients for Treatment of Sepsis. Those locations are: 

In August 2025, 73.5 percent of patients with sepsis received the necessary treatment within the designated timeframe. That includes drawing a lactic acid lab, obtaining blood cultures and administering IV antibiotics as soon as possible. That’s above the national average of 60%.

Our care teams aren’t satisfied with their above-average score. They continue to go back and look at reasons why the rest were delayed in getting a step of treatment in the process, so they can make improvements.

“Each site has a sepsis team that reviews every single miss each month to find the root cause of why it happened,” said Dani Kicilinski, RN, MSN, CNL, principal quality improvement consultant with M Health Fairview. “We work collaboratively as a team to determine how we can improve patient care.”