Ciaran Staunton said his son’s ambition was ‘to save the world,’ but 12-year-old Rory was never able to do that.
In March 2012, Rory, from New York City, cut his arm as he dove for a ball in a basketball game. Later that night he woke up experiencing intense pain in his leg. By the morning, he had a 104 degree fever.
Four days later, the boy died of sepsis, a deadly over reaction of the immune system to an infection that causes the body to attack healthy tissues and organs.
Now, Rory’s parents, Ciaran and Orlaith Staunton, are calling for hospitals to do more to prevent other families from having to endure the same tragedy, including adopting sepsis protocol and increasing education around the deadly condition.
Rory Staunton, pictured here, was just 12 years old when he died of sepsis in 2012. His parents are now introducing the first-ever national sepsis legislation
The Stauntons are working with lawmakers on America’s first-ever nationwide legislation to spot sepsis sooner so ‘no one else has to go through’ the devastating illness, which kills more Americans than strokes, Alzheimer’s disease, and diabetes.
Introducing the bill last week, dubbed the SEPSIS (Securing Enhanced Programs, Systems and Initiatives for Sepsis) Act, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said: ‘Sepsis is a devastating medical condition, which unjustly claims the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans each year.
‘The true tragedy is that many of these fatalities are preventable if there is early enough detection. The federal government must continue to bring more awareness and research to combatting this ruinous condition and save lives.’
Mr Staunton added: ‘This is the first major federal response to sepsis.’
What makes sepsis dangerous is it often starts with seemingly benign symptoms – a fever, tiredness and shortness of breath.
But sepsis, which can only be prevented by treating signs of infection immediately. It can quickly spiral out of control, leading patients to suffer multi-organ failure, heart attacks, and amputations as limbs turn black from tissue death.
Antibiotics are essential to clearing infection, as well as vasopressor medications, which help divert blood supply back to vital organs.
Mr Staunton told DailyMail.com: ‘Sepsis is very easy to find if you’re looking for it. So if you rule it out, you rule it out – or you save a life.’
‘It would have saved Rory’s life,’ Mrs Staunton added.
The Stauntons noted that raising awareness is key for preventing sepsis in the first place. Until Rory’s death, they had never heard of the condition.
And they’re not alone. Sepsis Alliance estimates one in three Americans has never heard of sepsis, despite it killing someone in the US every 90 seconds.
While sepsis affects 1.7million Americans – comparable to the 1.9million diagnosed with cancer – one in four US hospitals do not have any sepsis program whatsoever, according to 2023 CDC data.
And Sepsis is on the rise. When Rory died in 2012, the US saw 270,000 sepsis deaths per year. That number is now up to 350,000 per year, or one person every 90 seconds.
Only cancer and heart disease kill more in the US, with 600,000 and 700,000 deaths, respectively.
The above graph shows the yearly death toll of sepsis. The only conditions that kill more Americans per year are cancer and heart disease
Under the SEPSIS Act, every hospital in the US would be required to have a sepsis protocol.
These often include screening patients for signs of sepsis as soon as they enter a doctor’s office or emergency room, running blood tests to look for infection, and promptly administering antibiotics if necessary.
Hospitals will also have to report data on pediatric sepsis, which impacts 75,000 children per year, one in 10 of whom die after being admitted to the hospital, according to Sepsis Alliance.
Mrs Staunton said: ‘There has been very little done on pediatric sepsis.
‘We know that 7,000 children die every year from sepsis, but there’s been no data collection. There has been nothing from the federal government in response to the level of death and sepsis in children.
‘So [the government] will be tasked with data collection for that.’
Mr Staunton added: ‘We feel very strongly that hospitals will respond to this.’
The new national legislation is based off Rory’s Regulations, named for Rory Staunton. They require all hospitals in New York to have a sepsis protocol
‘The torture we have lived with for the last 12 years, there’s nothing that’s going to make it any worse,’ Rory’s father, Ciaran Staunton, told DailyMail.com
The new legislation mirrors those of Rory’s Regulations, a law passed in the family’s home state of New York in 2013 that requires all hospitals in the state to have a sepsis protocol and report metrics to the state.
The law was championed by the Staunton family and named after Rory.
K-12 schools in the state teach a sepsis curriculum and medical professionals looking to renew their licenses must take a course on the subject.
Mr Staunton estimates the law has saved 20,000 lives in New York since 2014.
He told this website: ‘We sat down with Senator Schumer’s office and others last year, and it was decided that there needed to be a federal sepsis bill to make sure that children and adults from coast to coast were protected from sepsis.
‘It’s the same treatment you get in a hospital in Massachusetts or California when you go in for signs of a stroke or heart attack or others. So why should it be the luck of the draw if you go into a hospital with sepsis?’
In the years since Rory’s death, the Staunton’s, who also have a younger daughter, have channeled their grief into establishing END SEPSIS, a nonprofit focused on ending sepsis deaths in children and adults worldwide.
The goal, they said, is to keep other families from experiencing a loss like theirs and make sure anyone with sepsis can be treated quickly. Health officials urge patients to get proper treatment within an hour, dubbed the ‘Golden Hour,’ as organs can begin to fail after this.
‘The torture we have lived with for the last 12 years, there’s nothing that’s going to make it any worse,’ Mr Staunton said.
‘Rory came out on a Tuesday evening with me, where I picked out pizza for him. The following Tuesday, we had to pick out a coffin for him. That’s what we want to prevent happening in America.’
