Man hospitalized after turning blue from head to toe — leading to bizarre bedroom discovery
A 42-year-old man was rushed to the hospital after turning bright blue from head to toe — only to discover the strange color was caused by dye from his new bedsheets.
Tommy Lynch, a construction worker from Castle Gresley in Derbyshire, had recently received a set of navy blue bedsheets as a gift. After sleeping in them for two nights without washing them first, he woke up feeling extremely tired and noticed his skin had turned a vivid shade of blue.
Lynch said he looked like “an Avatar.”
Concerned, a friend who works as a caregiver saw him and immediately insisted he go to the hospital. When Lynch arrived at Queen’s Hospital in Burton on November 15, medical staff quickly took him in for evaluation. Within minutes, he was placed on oxygen while doctors tried to figure out what had happened.
At one point, about 10 doctors gathered around him to run tests and check his condition. The mystery was solved when a doctor wiped Lynch’s arm with an alcohol swab and the wipe turned blue. That’s when Lynch realized the color had come from the dye in his unwashed bedsheets.
“I never knew you had to wash your sheets before you slept on them,” Lynch said. “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 say, ‘Hi, I’ve woken up blue.’”
He said the doctors told him they had never seen someone that color before who was still healthy.
“The moment they wiped my arm and the wipe turned blue, it clicked,” he said. “I was mortified, but they said I’d given them a good laugh. They don’t usually get funny stories in A&E.”
Lynch explained that the king-size sheets, which cost about $53.84, had been given to him by a friend named Del to help keep him warm in his barn home. Because he hadn’t washed them first, the dye transferred to his skin while he slept.
On the second night, Lynch said he overslept and woke up in the afternoon completely blue.
“The day before I shook someone’s hand and they looked a little blue afterward, but I thought I was just cold,” he said. “The next night I must have overheated. I was lovely and cozy.”
His friend Del became alarmed after Lynch slept for 14 hours and appeared bright blue when he finally woke up. Lynch’s mother also became worried after he sent her a photo, fearing he might have circulation problems.
“I tried scrubbing my hands but the color wouldn’t come off,” Lynch said. “My mate said we needed to go to the hospital because he’d seen something like it before and thought it could be serious.”
Doctors initially feared Lynch might be suffering from oxygen deprivation or another medical condition because of his unusual skin color and fatigue. However, once the dye was discovered, the situation quickly became clear.
Lynch said he felt embarrassed but grateful for how the hospital staff handled the situation.
“They were absolutely fantastic,” he said. “But I was mortified.”
After returning home, it took about a week and several baths for the blue dye to fully wash off his skin.
“The water was blue,” he said. “The first thing I did when I got home was wash the sheets. I haven’t gone blue since.”
Lynch now has a simple piece of advice for others: always wash new sheets before using them — unless you want to skip the line at the emergency room.
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