Lana Coc-Kroft says she was sure she would die of the pain when she collapsed in Fiji with a bacterial infection while filming a reality television show.
Coc-Kroft nearly died in Auckland Hospital's intensive care unit from an illness doctors said was caused by a coral cut, she told the Holmes
programme last night.
She had been on location filming Touchdown Television's Celebrity Treasure Island last month when she was struck by the illness, known as Group A streptococcal toxic shock syndrome.
"Everyone thought I had dengue fever ... It felt like every bone in my body had been broken. I really thought I'd die from the pain."
Flown home by Learjet with dangerously low blood pressure, Coc-Kroft said her organs shut down and a lung collapsed in hospital. She recalled being unable to breathe.
"I had heart failure, lung failure, kidney, liver - every organ in my body, my bladder, my skin stopped growing, my blood stopped clotting, my brain stopped working."
Her initial memories of hospital were hazy, she said.
"I know there was a team of doctors and I know that they saved my life ... a couple of times."
Coc-Kroft was in hospital for more than a month and said she was still taking heart and pain medication. She had lost about 12kg.
She felt she had been to hell and back, and said it was hard still being too weak to pick up her sons.
