Florida man contracts flesh-eating bacteria after being bitten by RELATIVE at family function
A Florida man almost lost his leg — and could have died — from a rare flesh-eating bacterial infection, which developed after he was bitten in the thigh during a family fight.
Donnie Adams, a 53-year-old funeral assistant from the Tampa suburb of Riverview, went to the emergency room in mid-February to treat a bump the size of a dollar coin on his upper left thigh.
He was sent home with a tetanus shot and antibiotics, but the injury got worse over the next few days, becoming red, swollen and painful to the touch.
His thigh “almost looked like an orange peel because of the swelling that was underneath it,” Dr. Fritz Brink, a wound care specialist at HCA Florida Healthcare who treated Adams, told NBC News.
“By day number three, the leg was swollen, it felt very warm and I had problems with mobility and everything,” Adams said on Friday. He eventually returned to the hospital, according to WSAV, when he received startling news from osteopathic physician Dr. Fritz Brink at HCA Florida.
Brink told Adams he had necrotizing fasciitis, more commonly known as a flesh-eating bacteria.
The disease enters through a break in the skin, travels through the muscle sheath and destroys healthy tissue.
Brink immediately performed surgery to cut out the infected tissue in Adams’ thigh, which the doctor believes came from the bite.
‘A human bite is dirtier than a dog bite as far as the kinds of bacteria that grows,’ said Brink. ‘Normal bacteria in an abnormal spot can be a real problem.’
About 70 percent of the tissue in the front of Adams’ thigh needed to be cut out, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
‘You’re torn between being as aggressive as you can be to stop the infection from spreading and leaving as much tissue behind so that it won’t take two years to heal,’ Brink said. ‘They assessed my wound and it was very horrific,’ Adams remembered. ‘It was unbelievable. But in my mind, I just had to get through whatever this was.’
Adams needed nearly three weeks to recover in the hospital but is in the middle of six months of treatment to fully heal.
He no longer has any functional problems but has a nasty, visible scar on his thigh from the surgery.
However, Adams has maintained a positive attitude about the entire process and owes his recovery to both doctors, as well as praying and meditating regularly.
‘What you see now, you see not just a scar, but the beauty of the aftermath,’ he said.
‘I would’ve never imagined that a human bite would turn into something so horrific as a flesh-eating bacteria.’
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