Burnley Women's manager Jackie Bachteler has revealed the terrifying details of a sepsis scare that left her fearing for her life shortly after arriving in England to join the club's coaching staff.
Bachteler relocated from San Diego to Burnley in December 2025, initially dismissing early symptoms as jet lag and a demanding workload. That assumption changed abruptly one morning at the training ground when she felt the room spin around her and found herself unable to breathe properly.
Sensing something was seriously wrong, she alerted the club doctor, who happened to be on site attending to the men's team. A rapid examination revealed her blood pressure was falling sharply and her oxygen levels were dangerously low, prompting an emergency dash to hospital.
"To be honest, I thought I was going to die. I just had this feeling in my body like 'this is it'. I knew something was wrong," Bachteler told BBC Sport.
According to Bachteler, hospital staff initially treated her for a lung issue and prepared to discharge her, but she insisted something more serious was happening. Further tests confirmed her instincts. "They checked my blood pressure and it just plummeted. Then I couldn't walk. I was so dizzy and really confused. I was getting blotches on my skin," she said. A blood test triggered an urgent response from medical staff, who administered two IVs with fluids and antibiotics along with oxygen support.
Bachteler spent several days in intensive care as doctors monitored her blood and organ function every 20 minutes. She endured the ordeal largely alone, with her family in the United States unable to travel and her wife stranded in a snowstorm in Finland.
By her third day in hospital, Bachteler found she could no longer stand unassisted, and nurses instructed her not to attempt walking. "It was just lung treatment after lung treatment, fluids after fluids, antibiotics and everything else. I had to get help to use the bathroom," she recalled, adding that the experience forced her to confront her own mortality.
She had to relearn how to walk and paused her coaching career before returning to Burnley in July as manager of the women's team. Bachteler says she has not fully recovered and continues to battle post-sepsis syndrome, which brings on dizziness and severe fatigue. During a pre-season friendly, the heat and sunlight triggered a dizzy episode so intense she asked staff if she could sit inside a walk-in freezer to cool down and regain composure.
The manager credited Burnley's medical team with saving her life and connecting her with a respiratory specialist, while praising her coaching staff for stepping in when needed. She also spoke of the emotional toll on her family, recounting an evening when her visiting parents watched her become disoriented and shaky after leaving a restaurant, and how her wife broke down upon seeing how much weight she had lost during her hospitalization.
Bachteler said she still experiences fatigue, memory lapses, mental fog and trembling when overtired, though she estimates she is now operating at roughly 70 to 80 percent of her former self, thanks to ongoing respiratory therapy and NHS care.
The experience has reshaped her outlook on football. "A loss is a loss. I really believe in what I'm doing and in the people that I'm doing it with. Now the worst thing that will happen is that we lose a game," she said.
With Burnley set to play at Turf Moor on Sunday, which coincides with World Sepsis Day, Bachteler hopes to use her platform to raise awareness of the condition, noting that more than half of survivors experience post-sepsis syndrome. "Hopefully I can use the game as a tool to help others recognise the signs and let them know they are not alone," she said.
Based on reporting from BBC Sport.