Bitten during a family altercation, he comes close to amputation

When a fight breaks out in his family, Donnie Adams intervenes to put an end to it. He was then bitten in the thigh by one of his relatives. Two days later, a painful bump pushes him to go to the Emergency Department of the HCA Florida Northside hospital (United States) to be vaccinate against tetanus and receive antibiotics. He goes home but his condition worsens very quickly. Unable to walk, the man in his fifties returns to the emergency room. Surgeon Fritz Brink operated on him on February 19. He will do everything forr save his leg, and even his life. More than just a bite, the man has been contaminated with bacteria which spreads rapidly through tissues, muscles and nerves resulting in “necrotizing fasciitis“hence his nickname of flesh-eating bacteria. Approximately 70% of Donnie Adams’ front thigh fabric must have been cut by the surgeon. “You’re torn between being as ‘aggressive’ as possible to stop the infection from spreading and preserving as much tissue as possible so it doesn’t take two years for the patient to heal,” commented Dr. Fritz Brink, quoted by the Tampa Bay Times.

If the patient had waited another day, the infection would probably have spread to his abdomen and he would have been exposed to high risk of septic shock. “It would have been difficult to control infection” pointed out the doctor. Never such a case of being bitten by another human being resulting in such an infection had not been observed in his hospital. Doctors could not confirm the presence of the bacteria in the parent’s mouth by Donnie Adams. The man has refused to give the name of the parent he bit him. “Family is everything, and sometimes things go wrong in families” he told NBCNews. He stayed in hospital for three weeks, until mid-March, then underwent 6 months of treatment to treat his injury.