A BRIDE who almost died after a wound from a spider bite in Jamaica went septic has revealed she had a previous run-in with a venomous snake on a student night out in less-exotic Liverpool.

Victoria Ross, from Bingley, is now recovering at home from the Violin Spider’s bite that ate away at her flesh and muscle covering her left leg with pus-filled boils.

And she has revealed she was also hospitalised as a fresher student in 2004 after a dumped pet snake crawled out of Liverpool Docks and bit her.

“You couldn’t make it up if you tried. It was even the same leg,” said newly-wed Mrs Ross who spoke to the Telegraph & Argus to back today’s World Sepsis Day.

The 32-year-old account executive said her previous bite encounter - which bizarrely exposed a severe allergy to chilli she had eaten in a hot curry the night before - was nothing compared to the nightmare she has just been through and she wanted to raise awareness of how terrifyingly fast sepsis can take a grip.

Mrs Ross is facing six months of wearing a special compression bandage while her leg rebuilds itself, although she will be left with scarring and the prospect of physiotherapy.

“It was hit and miss for a time,” she said. “At first doctors wanted to amputate. The sepsis was just eating my leg away. It was sheer panic. I had 120 anti-biotic drips in just seven days.

“The staff of Ward 6 at Airedale Hospital worked their backsides off to save my leg and me. I can’t thank them enough. They did everything possible.”

Mrs Ross was at work back off her honeymoon when she “went downhill” in less than an hour, starting with a shooting headache then uncontrollable shivers, feeling freezing cold apart from the burning hot sensation around the bite on her leg.

She said: “I managed to drive home but was so ill my dad had to meet me on the drive and piggy-back me out of the car. I left it too long. We rang 111 and they said it was sepsis.

“I’m so lucky to still be here and have my leg. I hope what happened to me can help alert others to what sepsis is and how fast it can take you over. If you suspect it, get help straightaway. It could save a life.”

Dr Dominic Hewitt, Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are glad to hear that Mrs Ross is recovering from her sepsis which was quickly identified and treated. Sepsis is the result of the body’s reaction to infection in some patients and can result in organ failure and death, even when treated. Mrs Ross’s symptoms of chills and headaches were typical.”

Symptoms are slurred speech or confusion, extreme shivering or muscle pain, passing no urine in a day, severe breathlessness, mottled or discoloured skin.

Sepsis kills 44,000 people in the UK, more than breast, bowel, cervical and prostate cancer combined.

Recognising the symptoms and early treatment can save lives. To find out more, go to sepsistrust.org.

This week Bradford Teaching Hospitals Trust was identified by BBC Panorama as the lowest scoring NHS England trust for treating sepsis with antibiotics, covering the 12 months to March 2017. According to those figures only 25 per cent of patients who needed them were treated within one hour.