Sepsis killed NASCAR champion Kyle Busch. But what is it?

Añadido: 2026-05-28

[00:00:01]Welcome back to Fox 12 now. I'm Greg Miller live stream here from the Fox 12 newsroom. You know, we cover a wide range of topics here on this show, but something that certainly hit home for a lot of fans of his work was the death of Kyle Bush and just how it happened.

[00:00:14]Somebody who seemingly would have been healthy passing away and then now hearing about just the cause of that and one of the lead causes was sepsis. So, how did that develop and what should we know about that for well for everybody out there just to stay safe and make sure that you're aware of any kind of medical concerns that could come up for yourself? We want to discuss that. We've got Dr. Hoskin who's joining us right now from the Oregon Clinic. And doctor, thank you for being here with us uh to talk about this. And you know, it's an unfortunate that this is the the root cause of what we're talking about. But when it does come to this, you know, for to allay any confusion out there, could you tell us just about, you know, when it comes to Kyle Bush, how this happened and what did lead to his death?

[00:00:55]>> Yeah, we're still um don't have all of the details about what happened to Mr. Bush. We know that he got sick. Um we know that he um was hospitalized and died shortly thereafter. um was diagnosed with pneumonia and sepsis. Um sepsis is uh a response where when you have an infection um the interaction between your immune system and the infection itself kind of goes haywire and it's either that the disease itself is just shutting down your body or a combination of the immune system just attacking so much and you can have a normal infection without getting as sick as Mr. Bush did. um and more likely that this is just really bad luck for someone who um was otherwise healthy and had a really bad infection and that despite the best um uh treatments that we have that they just weren't able to save his life.

[00:01:48]>> Can you tell us a little bit more just about what sepsis is just to really understand that? And you mentioned, you know, that this is something that can happen on an infection.

[00:01:57]>> I mean, bad luck. It sounds like it could have been one of the situations with Kyle Bush, but are there any general things that you know >> that you know will will cause sepsis?

[00:02:07]>> Yeah, I mean sepsis is a syndrome. So, it's not like a diagnosis where I say you have pneumonia or you're having a heart attack or you've had a stroke.

[00:02:16]It's something that shows up and it's when you have an infection and it results in your body shutting down. And so that's not all infections, but it is actually relatively common. Um, we know that there's 13 million deaths from sepsis worldwide on an annual basis. And it's one of those things that we really worry about. Um, but sepsis, when you think about it, the Sepsis Alliance has some really key things that they try to have people think about, and we think about that as time. So four different things. So T, I m. So T is temperature changes. and it's either really high temperatures or really low temperatures.

[00:02:54]I is for evidence of infection. So, one of the things that um one of the common causes of sepsis is actually a cellulitis or what we would call necroizing fasciitis where you have an infection. Um often I'm just showing you my arm because it's easier to put on the camera than my leg, but it can be an infection of your leg, your foot, your arm. It can be from a pneumonia. You can also get sepsis from infections in the abdomen if you have a perf uh perforated or get a hole inside of one of the um organs inside of your abdomen. All of those things can cause overwhelming infection and then your body to shut down. Um and it occurs in a subset of individuals who do get sick. So again, it's not everybody. Um and it's hard to diagnose. It's not like you know with a heart attack you have chest pain or or other symptoms. you show up in the emergency room, they do an EKG and they say you're having a heart attack, we take you to the Kath lab. We don't have great tests or um diagnostic uh criteria for it. So, but you've got the temperature, you've got evidence of infection. M is for mental status changes. Often times, individuals become more confused. They're just really sleepy. They're having a hard time staying awake. Um and that can be very much a dangerous sign. And then E is for extremely ill. Someone that just looks a lot sicker than you've ever seen them before. So, you know, if you think about someone that you've seen having pneumonia before and they're coughing, they're a little bit short of breath, but they're doing okay. If you think about someone who just looks like they're breathing hard, they're turning blue around their lips, um, that may be a little bit too far beyond them. Um, and in Mr. Bush's case, they described that he'd been coughing up blood, and that's definitely a symptom that you want to seek medical care for.

[00:04:30]>> Yeah, talking about that, when it comes to those symptoms, I mean, thank you for walking through all of that, too, of just understanding a little bit more about what some of those signs of sepsis are. you know what can be done about that if someone does determine that they have sepsis.

[00:04:44]>> Yeah. So sepsis again um clinical diagnosis related to some other underlying condition. And the treatment of sepsis is to treat the underlying cause. So treat the pneumonia, treat the um you know if you have appendicitis or you have a hole in your stomach or your intestines, you go to surgery to treat that. Um so it's early identification of the infection, treatment with antibiotics. If the blood pressure is low, we give IV fluids or start on medications to raise the blood pressure up. And then we try and do what we call source control. And that's getting control of the infection. So if you have an abscess in your shoulder or on your arm, we'll ask the surgeons to open that up to try and control the infection, remove the infected material that's there. If you have an abscess inside of your chest, putting a tube into there.

[00:05:29]So, it's really treating the underlying infection, fluids if needed, early and appropriate antibiotics to try and control the infection as well, and then supporting the organs that are damaged because sepsis is that infection with evidence of organ system shutting down.

[00:05:46]So, either your kidneys, your breathing, um your heart, um something else, and we'll do things to try and help support in the meantime. Um, just in general, what would be some good advice for people as far as just to try to avoid even getting into that realm, whether that is bad luck or whatever, you know, whatever underlying condition causes that sepsis, just to try to, I guess, put the best foot forward to try to avoid getting into that situation.

[00:06:12]>> Oh, looks like we might have frozen there. Uh, I think we we did get a lot of information there from the doctor.

[00:06:18]We'll see if he comes back on that. Um uh but if not um yeah, we'll go ahead and and and switch it over. But that was some fantastic information on what to know there about about sepsis and about how to make sure that you know you're doing your best to avoid those situations. But if it does happen, how to get in there and notice some of those symptoms that he mentioned. So some good analogies there, good information on what to follow up on and how to avoid uh getting into those situations. So we appreciate Dr. the doctor here for joining us and again you know we're live streaming and sometimes those things happen where situations or uh or we lose contact with somebody. Oh actually I was just going to wrap up but doctor I think that you are back uh before before I wrap us up here.

[00:07:00]>> Sorry about that.

[00:07:00]>> Oh no okay that's fine. Hey this technology it happens. Um, I guess just to just to sum it up for everybody, you know, what are the most important things that you think people should know just going forward to make sure that they're doing the best to make the putting the best foot forward to stay as healthy as possible and avoid something like like getting into a sepsis situation?

[00:07:20]>> Yeah. Unfortunately, the best way to try and prevent sepsis is to try to uh prevent um getting sick. Um the ways that we have to do that are just routine public health. Um wash your hands. Um, make sure that you're trying to stay um, eat a healthy diet, exercise, get your vaccines. And I know that vaccines people are opposed to doing vaccines, but we know that the number one way to prevent death from a pneumonia is to get a pneumonia vaccine. Um, get a flu vaccine, get a COVID vaccine, um, and, uh, just usual um, you know, smart health uh, techniques to try and keep your health uh, keep yourself safe. Um, and you know, wash your hands a lot. And if you really are worried that you're um sick, um if you're feeling like you're doing a lot worse, um you're having a hard time thinking, um things just aren't right, um then seek medical care either from urgent care, emergency room, your primary care doctor, or just any advice line.

[00:08:13]>> So just yeah, watch out for yourself and if you notice something going on, get get to your doctor. Sounds like.

[00:08:19]>> Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, doctor, thank you very much for joining us. I really appreciate your time in being here and providing this information.

[00:08:26]Anything else that you think is important for people to know?

[00:08:29]>> Uh, not that comes off the top of my head.

[00:08:31]>> Okay. Yeah, we covered quite a bit in this. So, yeah, thanks so much. All right. We appreciate your time and joining us.

[00:08:37]>> You're welcome.

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