Man Saved at Jackson Memorial Hospital After Suffering Life-Threatening Sepsis

By: Krysten Brenlla

As a devoted husband to his wife, a father to his two young sons, an active musician, and a manager in real estate development, Nevin Dunn knew what it meant to have endless energy.

However, the 35-year-old Canada native suffered from hemochromatosis, a disorder where the body absorbs and stores too much iron, which can make someone prone to infection or more severe symptoms from an illness.

While vacationing in Miami with his family in December 2023, Nevin developed a tickle in his throat.

During the flight, he felt bad chills, his body went numb, and he was experiencing shallow fast breathing.

Within hours of landing in South Florida, his condition got worse. By morning, Nevin couldn’t walk and was coughing up blood. He was admitted to the nearest hospital, where the situation turned life-threatening.

“The doctors told my wife and me that I had contracted an aggressive form of strep throat,” Nevin said. “It had entered my bloodstream through what they believed was an open abscess in my throat, leading to sepsis and toxic shock. My body began to shut down.”

The infection spread quickly, attacking his arms and legs. He was transferred to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where a team of doctors and nurses in the intensive care unit at Jackson’s The Lung Center worked to stabilize him.

“It was months later that I learned I had flatlined three times while on life support,” Nevin said. “Everybody was saying goodbye.”

The Lung Center placed him on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a life-support machine that takes over the work of the heart and lungs when they’re too weak to work properly. For three weeks, ECMO kept Nevin alive, alongside dialysis and intensive care.

Although his medical team fought hard, the damage to his limbs was irreversible. Over the course of his hospitalization, Dunn underwent 16 surgeries, ultimately losing both legs, parts of his fingers, and 70 percent of his hearing.

“When I first saw Nevin, he was in bad shape,” said Carla Lavalliere, a nursing assistant at Jackson Memorial’s cardiac transplant unit. “It was heartbreaking to see a young man in the hospital because I have a son his same age. I did everything I could to make him comfortable, and I made sure he and his wife knew that he’d be in good hands.”

Despite the challenges, Nevin’s determination and spirit remained unbreakable.

For months, he focused on his recovery and pushed through the pain, with help from therapists at Christine E. Lynn Rehabilitation Center for The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis at UHealth/Jackson Memorial, and Jackson’s hematology, orthopedics, and infection control teams.

“As a musician, it was the most devastating thing to wake up with all of those amputations,” Nevin said. “But my Jackson caregivers did a great job in allowing me to keep what I could of my hands.”

At the end of March 2024, Nevin was able to leave the hospital.

His recovery continued at home, where he had to navigate a new reality—one that required a new team of doctors, managing long-term disability, and learning to use prosthetics.

Despite the setbacks, he continues to work toward reaching his goals: learning to walk again, regaining his independence with the help of his family and friends, and even hosting his annual holiday party, standing on prosthetic legs while playing the saxophone.

“When it was time for Nevin to go home, his condition changed drastically. His skin color changed, he was gaining weight, and he was much happier,” Lavalliere said. “He still has great energy and faith that he’ll be able to walk on two legs one day.”

Nevin’s experience also inspired a new purpose for him – as someone deeply involved in real estate development, he became an advocate for accessibility. He’s joined coalitions to push for policy changes, and integrated accessibility initiatives into his own company’s housing projects.

“I’m forever grateful to the teams at Jackson,” he said. “They’re my family now. They saved my life.”