Trauma surgeon Professor Martin Wullschleger was checking on his ICU patients when he made a life-saving decision that could have ended his career in Australia.

A woman whose leg had been crushed between two cars was deteriorating rapidly — she was tachycardiac with a systolic blood pressure of 70 and falling.

She was not his patient, but the trauma surgeon realised she was in septic shock from reperfusion syndrome.

“I said to the team, ‘This patient is going to arrest in front of our eyes if we don’t do anything’,” Professor Wullschleger recalls.