THE star of a Scottish TV show has had both legs and her right arm amputated after she contracted deadly sepsis when she took ill with a kidney stone.

Doctors battling to save the mum-of-five, who found fame on BBC documentary The Scheme, were forced to take drastic action after an abscess burst — flooding her body with poison and causing multiple organ failure.

Medics broke the news that docusoap star Annie, 54, would lose her limbs when she woke from a coma five weeks after an emergency op.

Speaking from her hospital bed she said: “I’m just so glad to be alive.

"I went into septic shock and my organs all failed.

"For a couple of days the doctors were telling the family that they couldn’t do anything more for me and that I wouldn’t make it.

“They said I was dead at one point and they brought me back. The doctors couldn’t believe it that I made it through. They said I was like a cat with nine lives.

“The doctor who saved me came to speak to me the other day and he started greeting.

"He said ‘Annie, you were dead when you were handed to me’."

Annie, of Kilmarnock, hailed her children for helping her to pull through the near-death experience.

She added: “I honestly don’t know how I’d get through this without my weans. They’re a true inspiration to me. I love them with all my heart.

“Every time I woke up they were at my bedside crying.”

Annie’s ordeal began when she was struck down by agonising pain in her back and stomach on April 7.

She was admitted to Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock then rushed to Ayr for emergency treatment to remove a kidney stone three days later, on April 10.

At that point surgeons found the abscess, but it burst and Annie says they had to abandon the op as she went into septic shock.

Medics put her on a kidney dialysis machine and ventilator to keep her alive. She spent over a month under sedation.

But when she woke up she found her ordeal had only just started. Annie continued: “When I saw myself I couldn’t believe it.

“My hands were all black and my feet were black like coal. It looked like I’d been burned.

“How can you go from being in the house with the grandkids to waking up weeks later completely jet black? I couldn’t believe it. I kept jumping back.

“I felt like I was in a different body. The doctor said my toes would fall off and I’d have my arm and legs amputated.”

Annie went back under the knife for her triple amputation on May 3. Surgeons removed her right arm above the elbow and her lower legs.

Annie said: “It was terrible. I still feel in shock, I can’t even believe it’s happened.

“I had never heard of sepsis in my life, I just feel like how could this happen? It was just so sudden.

“I can’t come to terms with it. I was terrified.”

But she said medics have been stunned by her progress, though she still faces weeks in hospital and a gruelling course of physiotherapy.

Annie — mum to Claire, 34, Bryan, 33, Christopher, 28, David, 29, and Kimberley, 24 — said: “They thought I’d need dialysis forever but my kidneys are working and my heart is working — they said I’m a miracle.

"They are mystified and said they want to use my case to teach students.

"Sometimes I wish I didn’t wake up but I have to be thankful I still have one arm.

“I’m getting in a lot of pain but I’m on pain relief.

"I’m getting physiotherapy and they said I will need artificial limbs for my legs, but I’ll only get a cosmetic hand.

“I’ll get prosthetic legs in a few weeks and I’ll walk out. I have the willpower.”

And she added: “The girls have been looking at bionic arms. Apparently they’re amazing.”

Kimberley has launched a £30,000 appeal to buy the attachment as experts warned a cosmetic replacement won’t be as functional.

She said: “She’s alive and that is the most important thing. My mum beat sepsis and I’m so proud of her. She is a survivor.

“But she is the most independent woman I know and not having her arm is killing her. She is distraught she can’t tie her hair in a bobble or get herself dressed.

“Mum wants to drive again and she won’t be able to do that without getting the arm she needs.”

Annie and her Cunningham clan were a focal point of the controversial 2010 BBC Scotland reality series about life on Kilmarnock’s tough Onthank estate.

Some episodes had to be postponed as several participants faced court cases.