Local teenager ends up in medically induced coma after UTI went untreated

PITTSBURGH — A family is hoping for a miracle after their teenage daughter became seriously ill and wound up in a medically induced coma.

“She’s a perfectly healthy 18-year-old, who on Sunday was fighting for her life,” her mom Shannon Sullivan told Channel 11.

Katie Sullivan’s friends and family know her as a Central Valley High School graduate, a gymnast and a freshman softball player at Waynesburg University.

“This has been incredibly scary. Katie is not one to complain about much because she’s very athletic,” Katie’s father Tim Sullivan told Channel 11.

For the last month, she had lower back pain that she and her family assumed was from her rigorous training schedule.

She celebrated Christmas morning with her family, and days later she was life-flighted to Allegheny General Hospital for extremely low blood pressure and high heartbeat.

At AGH, doctors diagnosed Katie with a UTI and said she was in critical condition.

“When they did the testing, they found she had a UTI for about a month that actually caused a hole in her kidney. It caused an abscess in her liver into her back muscle and behind her kidney. She was in septic shock,” Shannon said.

For the last week and a half, she’s been undergoing surgeries, in a medically induced coma, on a ventilator and experiencing brain swelling.

“We weren’t given much hope. We brought all our family in. Hour to hour, we went out and celebrated that she didn’t deteriorate,” Shannon told Channel 11.

But — everything changed this afternoon.

“For the first time today, I asked her if she wanted to go home, and she shook her head yes. Then they asked her if she was in pain, and she shook her head no. I told her if she wanted to go home she had to put a thumbs up, and she did. From not moving on Sunday, and telling us hour by hour, today is miraculous,” she added.

Doctors believe she has a long road ahead, but her parents hope to see her back in her softball uniform.

The softball community has shown support for Katie and her family.

“We’ve heard from teams from California that are praying for Katie, and even teams she’s played against, rivals,” her dad said.

Her parents have one ask to the public: don’t ignore back pain.

“Even if you think it’s nothing, please get it checked. Because never in a million years, and I’m a nurse practitioner, would I think she would be here with renal failure, intubated, and being given a dire diagnosis at 18,” she said.

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