Woman, 25, developed sepsis from a WEDGIE after wearing tight denim shorts all day

A North Carolina woman has revealed how a wedgie from a pair of tight jean shorts caused a painful bacterial skin infection, which ultimately developed into life-threatening sepsis that left her in the ICU for a week.

Sam, 25, shared her unlikely medical emergency is a viral TikTok video that’s been viewed over eight million times, recounting how she wore the cutoff shorts on a day-long date with her now-boyfriend three-and-a-half years ago.

Because she was having so much fun, she didn’t think much of the wedgie she had to keep picking — until she discovered a bump on her backside later that night, which over the next few days grew so painful that her mother rushed her to the ER.

‘If I hadn’t gone to the hospital when I did, I could’ve easily died,’ she told BuzzFeed, explaining that her skin was so badly infected that she spent several days in the ICU, where doctors debated surgery to remove some of the severely infected tissue.

The look: Sam, from North Carolina, went on an eight-hour date three-and-a-half years ago and wore a pair of tight shorts with boy short underwear

All good: She was having such a good time with the guy, whom she’d been dating for two weeks (pictured with her in hospital), that she ignored the discomfort

Sam was feeling fantastic in 2018 when she bought a pair of One Teaspoon Bandits shorts, which she’d bought on sale. 

‘I thought they were the coolest shorts ever, and of course, my whole a** was out,’ she said.

She liked how they looked enough to wear them on an early date with a guy she’d been seeing for about two weeks at the time.

The date was clearly a success, lasting eight hours from brunch until dinner and a comedy show that night.

In fact, she was enjoying herself so much that she didn’t make a fuss about the fact that her underwear and shorts were causing an uncomfortable situation.

‘I was wearing boy short underwear, and the material kept clumping up and I kept picking my wedgie so… I kept picking it. It just kept happening,’ she said.

Though she didn’t let it bother her during the date, when she was home that night, she realized she was in pain.

Flashback: Since the health scare, she admitted she no longer likes to wear denim shorts, and prefers to wear looser cloth shorts instead

Ouch: She developed a ‘bump’ where the fabric had been chafing, and grew increasingly painful over the next few days

Help! It became ‘the worst stabbing pain’ and her mother rushed her to the ER, where she was admitted to the ICU and stayed for a week

‘That night, I noticed that I had a large bump where the chafing had occurred, and as time went on, it started becoming more painful,’ she told BuzzFeed. ‘The pain was isolated to one spot and it felt like a throbbing, stabbing pain.’

She said her backside was ‘sore’ for several days afterword.

‘After a few days, [I] started to feel sick and went to the doctor. They gave me antibiotics for a possible “skin infection” in my a** crack,’ she wrote.

But the next day, she was feeling ‘awful,’ with ‘the worst stabbing pain.’ It was so bad that her mother went to the emergency room, where she learned she was in septic shock.

‘I was shivering, very breathless, could not walk and had extreme body aches. They admitted me to the ICU, and that’s when I realized this was a bit more serious that I had anticipated,’ she said.

That’s when doctors diagnosed her with sepsis and cellulitis. 

Cellulitis is a common bacterial skin infection, which can be caused when a wound — like raw, chaffed skin — is exposed to bacteria. Symptoms include redness, swelling, and pain. 

Thankfully, she didn’t end up needing surgery, but she ‘did endure trauma of my mother taking selfies of me while I [was] asleep in the hospital bed’

Viral: Sam is healthy now, and sees the whole incident as a funny story — and TikTok viewers clearly agree

If it gets bad enough, it can cause sepsis, a life-threatening reaction to infection.

Sam spent four days in the ICU, with doctors telling her that they may need to perform debridement surgery, which is involves removing all infected, necrotic, or dead tissue from her rectum. 

She recalled ‘constantly having to show my a** to doctors every day.’

Thankfully, she didn’t end up needing surgery, but she ‘did endure trauma of my mother taking selfies of me while I [was] asleep in the hospital bed.’

She also got a visit from her date, whom she is still with three-and-a-half years later. She said it was the first time he had met her family, but he was ‘literally the nicest person in the world’ and came to stay with her so her mother could go home and rest.

‘He put my hair up for me, he brushed my teeth, he took out my contacts. He was literally the nicest person ever,’ she said.

‘It’s kind of mindblowing, but we’re for sure telling this at our wedding one day,’ Sam said

She went on to spend the rest of the week in the hospital recovering, and needed a whole month of rest at home afterward.

While the sepsis cleared up, her cellulitis came back a month later, requiring another short trip to the ER for antibiotics. 

Sam is healthy now, and sees the whole incident as a funny story — and TikTok viewers clearly agree. 

Since the health scare, she admitted she no longer likes to wear denim shorts, and prefers to wear looser cloth shorts instead — but she’s still held onto the those particular denim shorts as a sort of keepsake.

TikTokers were also delighted that she is still with her date years later. 

‘It’s kind of mindblowing, but we’re for sure telling this at our wedding one day,’ Sam said.