Sepsis symptoms can be debilitating. A new rule cracks down on prevention in hospitals

Don Smith remembers the moment he awoke in an intensive care unit after 13 days in a medically induced coma. His wife and daughter were at his bedside, and he thought it had been only a day since he arrived at the emergency room with foot pain.

Smith said his wife “slowly started filling me in” on the surgery, the coma, the ventilator. The throbbing in his foot had been a signal of a raging problem.