Horrifying moment mother-of-two, 45, collapses in front of her daughter and is rushed to hospital after injecting herself with £150 ‘counterfeit skinny jab’ – as she warns others not to ‘gamble with your life’

Pictures reveal the horrific moment a single mother almost died in front of her children after injecting herself with a ‘counterfeit skinny shot’ she bought online.

Doctors told mum-of-two Michelle Sword she was very lucky to be alive after she administered herself a ‘dangerous’ slimming pen she bought online in September.

Ms Sword, who lives in Carterton, Oxfordshire, said she had ‘legitimately’ tried the drug through an online pharmacy three years earlier – but decided to try the viral slimming injection again in a bid to shed some pounds.

The family of drugs known as GLP-1 RAs, originally developed to treat diabetes, are now commonly used for weight loss because they were found to suppress a patient’s appetite.

The 45-year-old was able to buy the drug online ‘very easily’, but never expected the injection would cause her to fall to the floor and have a seizure in front of her eldest daughter on September 20.

The receptionist feared she would never see her children again after her blood sugar dropped to dangerous levels.

Ms Sword, mother of 13-year-old Cadie Sword and 18-year-old Coen Sword, started feeling confused and disoriented 15 minutes after injecting the drug before losing consciousness completely.

After being rushed to hospital, Ms Sword said doctors told her they had never seen anyone survive such low blood sugar levels in their career.

She admits she felt ‘ashamed’ to take the risk and has apologized to her children – while warning others not to ‘gamble with their lives’.

Ms Sword said: ‘When the jab arrived it looked the same as before, except the dial was different.

‘Usually the click with a slimming pen stops at 1 ml and you take 1 ml.

“I turned the clicker and it wouldn’t stop. I turned it over at least 17 or 18 times and I thought, if I need more, I’ll take it.

‘I took a few and thought I’d have a few more later.

‘I was preparing tea for my daughter when about fifteen minutes later I started to get a strange feeling.

‘I felt disoriented and strange and unknowingly I was sweating.

“My daughter Cadie said at the time that I was mumbling and that my eyes looked different.

“She said I was slumped over, wide-eyed and unresponsive at this point.

‘I didn’t know what was going on. She called my best friend who lives a few minutes away.

‘She came by and immediately thought this was extremely serious.

‘She called the ambulance and they were with me within twelve minutes.

‘I was completely out of it at that moment, I had lost consciousness.’

Paramedics soon realized that Ms Sword’s blood sugar levels were dangerously low and medics began trying to administer liquid glucose to help the mother regain consciousness.

Mrs Sword’s health went from bad to worse after she suffered a seizure in the ambulance on the way to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

Mrs Sword said: ‘They tried to give liquid glucose but no one could get anything into my veins so they started squeezing glucose gel into my mouth.

‘It was an out-of-body experience for me. I heard people say my name, but I just mumbled.

‘They waited 40 minutes after administering the glucose gel, but I didn’t respond.

‘They put me in the ambulance and took the pen with them.

‘Apparently I regained consciousness in the ambulance and they tried to feed me pastries to raise my blood sugar.

‘But during the drive to the hospital I started to lose consciousness again.

‘Then I had a seizure and the ambulance staff rammed a needle into my vein to give as much glucose as possible.

‘I was rushed to CPR and apparently eight or nine people followed me and did everything they could.

“I think all my levels went crazy at this point — my heart rate, sugar levels, potassium levels.”

Ms Sword said her blood sugar levels fell to 0.6 mmol/l. According to the NHS, the target range for blood glucose is between 4 and 7 mmol/l.

Ms Sword said the injection she had used actually contained pure insulin and not the intended weight loss drug as she thought.

In the meantime, doctors did everything possible to counteract the dangerous insulin levels in her body.

Ms Sword said: ‘At that point my blood sugar dropped to 0.6.

‘They did everything they could to counteract the insulin levels in my body, which they said were around 18 units, if not more.

‘I hadn’t eaten that day either and my blood sugars were probably already on the low side.

‘The drug was just pure insulin.

‘It took about an hour and luckily my blood sugars came up and I was able to get out of harm’s way.

‘I regained consciousness and they told me you are lucky to be alive.

‘Doctors said they’ve never seen anyone survive a blood sugar level of 0.6 and that I was a miracle.

‘I was told that my children would have come home with a dead body if no one had been there.

“I had a massive overdose of insulin.”

Ms Sword first bought a ‘skinny jab’ in 2020 after gaining a stone during lockdown.

The £150 injection suppressed Mrs Sword’s appetite, causing the mother to lose a lot of weight.

Three years later, she regained some of the weight and decided to try the viral weight-loss drug again in September.

Ms Sword said: ‘The first time I lost a lot of weight – it worked great, I felt great.

‘I have had no ill effects. I followed it to the letter.

‘A few months ago I was in a slump again and started eating a lot more.

‘I was very concerned about gaining weight again.

‘I thought I needed this weight-loss medicine. I knew it was very popular now and would be harder to come by.

“It kept coming up on my news feed.

‘I contacted this one company and asked if this was the official weight loss drug and they said yes. It looked exactly the same and two days later it arrived at my door.

‘No questions were asked about me, no medical questions. They didn’t even ask me how much I weighed.’

After injecting her first dose, Ms Sword said she overdosed on insulin and believes the injection was counterfeit.

The mother says she is ‘incredibly ashamed’ of using the drug and warns others not to make the same mistakes she did.

Ms Sword said: “I feel incredibly ashamed that I put myself in that situation.

‘Nothing is worth losing your life for.

‘I apologized to my children and said I was so sorry.

‘I’m so angry and ashamed of myself.

‘I’ll never do anything like that again. It’s not worth gambling with your life.’