On October 3, 2005, George Best walked into Cromwell Hospital in West London complaining of flu-like symptoms and severe back pain. Treating physicians initially diagnosed him with a localized kidney infection. Under standard circumstances, a course of targeted antibiotics would clear such an illness within days.
In Best's body, the infection moved unchecked. Within 48 hours, bacteria migrated into his bloodstream. His temperature spiked erratically, his blood pressure plummeted, and the localized renal problem escalated into systemic sepsis. By the end of the first week of October, medical staff transferred him to the intensive care unit.
His lead physician, Professor Roger Williams, a world-renowned hepatologist who had overseen Best's care since his days at King's College Hospital, faced a clinical paradox. The patient’s kidneys were deteriorating rapidly, producing acute oliguria. As toxic waste accumulated in his blood, the infection spread upward into his respiratory system, seeding an aggressive, hospital-acquired bacterial lung infection. Best was placed on mechanical ventilation to keep oxygen flowing through increasingly congested alveolar tissue.
