Woman to 'chase the extraordinary' after sepsis scare

Verity Pitts wants to achieve the "extraordinary" in spite of her medical history

A woman from West Sussex is attempting to complete all seven World Marathon Majors within eight months.

Verity Pitts, 25, from Worthing, plans to complete the challenge during layovers from working shifts as cabin crew, starting in Sydney on Sunday.

Ms Pitts, who said she survived sepsis at 19 and was diagnosed with type one diabetes at 20 during the Covid-19 pandemic, is using the challenge to raise £10,000 split between charities The UK Sepsis Trust and Breakthrough T1D.

She said: "It's proof that even with sepsis scars and insulin injections, you can still chase the extraordinary."

Ms Pitts completed her first marathon last year

In addition to Sydney, Ms Pitts has her sights set on marathons in Berlin, Chicago, New York, Tokyo, Boston and London between August this year and April 2026.

She told BBC Radio Sussex that after completing her first marathon last year, she wanted to push herself to "do something that not many people can".

'You get survivor's guilt'

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that the NHS says can be hard to spot.

It happens when the body improperly responds to an infection, where the immune system overreacts and starts to damage the body's own tissues and organs.

In the UK, around 245,000 people are affected by sepsis annually, causing 48,000 deaths each year, according to The UK Sepsis Trust.

Combined with her diabetes diagnosis, Ms Pitts said doctors told her that life would look different.

"I think you get survivor's guilt," she added.

"You feel quite guilty that there's a lot of people out there who have faced the same trauma but haven't been quite as lucky as I have."

Ms Pitts said more awareness needed to be raised of sepsis

Sydney Marathon starts at 06:30 (AEST), with Ms Pitts scheduled to be working on a flight later that same day.

"My mum, bless her, she's panicking," she said.

She told the BBC her fundraising efforts would go towards raising sepsis awareness and finding a cure for type one diabetes so it was "not the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning, or the last thing before bed".