Man took himself to A&E after turning blue – but found out it was dye from his bedsheets

A man was mortified after being rushed to the hospital, having turned blue from head-to-toe, only to discover it was his own blunder.

Tommy Lynch, 42, had bought navy blue bedsheets and slept in them for two nights when he woke up looking like a Smurf.

He felt ‘extremely tired’ and a friend, who works as a carer, took one look at him before rushing him to the nearest hospital.

Tommy was taken straight to see a doctor and was given a bed within minutes while concerned staff put him on oxygen.

When the doctor rubbed his arm with an alcohol wipe, the swab turned blue – and Tommy realised the culprit was his unwashed, new sheets.

Tommy said he gave the doctors a good laugh but left ‘more red than blue’ in the end.

The construction worker, from Castle Gresley, Derbyshire, said: ‘I never knew you had to wash your sheets before you slept on them.

‘Everyone in the reception of A&E was staring at me like they’d seen a ghost. I had to walk up to the desk, and I didn’t even know what to say: ‘Hi, I’ve woken up blue.’

Tommy said the doctors told him they’d ‘never seen someone that colour’ who was still alive.

‘As soon as they wiped my arm and it came off blue, it clicked. I was mortified, but they said I’d given them a good laugh. They don’t usually have funny stories in A&E,’ he said.

Tommy had been gifted the king-size bedsheets from his friend, Del, to keep him warm in his barn home.

On the second night of sleeping in them, Tommy overslept and woke up in the afternoon, bright blue.

He said: ‘The day before, I’d shaken hands with someone and they looked a light blue then, but I thought I was just cold.

‘The next night, I must have overheated, but I was lovely and cosy. My friend, Del, woke me up by knocking on the door as I’d slept for 14 hours, and he took one look at me and said I needed to go to the hospital.

‘I sent my mum a picture, and she was panicking about my blood circulation while I was pretty confused as I’d just woken up from a deep sleep.’

Tommy tried to scrub his hands, but found the blue colour wasn’t budging.

Tommy, who sleeps in the buff, had felt very tired and agreed to go to Queen’s Hospital in Burton.

Tommy, who has vitiligo, said he gave the doctors a good laugh but stressed he didn’t mean to waste their time.

He rang his mum to tell her he’d dyed himself – but a patchy reception left her thinking someone else had called to say he’d died.

After confirming he was in fact alive, Tommy spent the next week trying to wash off the blue by having multiple baths.

‘People were still looking at me weirdly as I had bath after bath, but it took a week. The water was blue,’ he said.

‘The first thing I did when I got home was wash my sheets. I haven’t gone blue since. Always wash your sheets before you sleep in them. Unless you want to jump the queue at A&E.’

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