Robert J. Lieberman

In March of 2002, 10 months after getting married, I was stuck with severe back pain on a Friday after work. I thought nothing of it as I was 27, overweight, and had had back issues since high school. However, within hours of getting home from work, I could barely walk and was in intense pain. By midnight, my wife had decided I should go to the emergency room in nearby Princeton, New Jersey.

After a few hours, the emergency room doctor determined I had pulled a back muscle, prescribed analgesics and sent me home. I had a 104 degree fever and severe back pain, and the doctor failed to take either blood or urine.

By Monday morning I was bedridden, unable to eat or drink, and in extreme pain. I believe I asked my wife to end the pain and kill me; it was that intense.

After a trip to my primary care physician, where I passed out twice and had to be brought in via wheelchair, I was sent back to the very same ER that had sent me home without exercising due care.

I was poked and prodded by every single specialist known to man before being admitted to the hospital. I was scheduled for an MRI to help locate the source of an infection that nobody could find when I “coded,” was put on a respirator, and given a less than 20% chance of survival. I had suffered adult respiratory distress syndrome, possible endocarditis, was intubated and spent the next 12 days in a drug-induced coma.

Finally, during the coma, the doctors determined I had severe sepsis that had been caused by a previously undetected staph infection, the origin of which was still unknown. The infection was located in my psoas muscle (apparently it’s around the back and goes the front?). It was a pocket of infection approximately the size of two bananas. I was given a brand new drug called Xigris, an anti-sepsis medication that saved my life.

I spent another week in the hospital and several months recovering at my parents’ home in Toms River. I do not believe I had many permanent injuries from this incident. I had paralyzed my vocal chords (I extubated myself 3 times while in the coma), several scars from various tubes into my heart, and I had to relearn to walk due to problems with my left side. Psychologically, I have had to deal with this near death experience; it haunts my dreams, caused me to re-evaluate my career, and change my attitude toward life.