Florida man contracted cannibalism after being bitten during battle
Written by on June 14, 2023
A man contracted a life-threatening flesh-eating infection after an argument at a family gathering, leading to the removal of a large portion of his thigh to save his life.
Donnie Adams, 52, of Tampa Bay, Fla., noticed a small bump on his left thigh days after being bitten by his family during a scuffle. He visited HCA Florida Northside Hospital in St. Petersburg on February 14 to receive a tetanus shot and antibiotics, after which his condition worsened. “On the third day my feet hurt so much. It was so hot and so painful I couldn’t even walk,” Adams told local news outlet WFLA. Emergency surgery later revealed that Adams had necrotizing fasciitis, a bacterial infection that eats people, and required the removal of about 70 percent of the tissue between the knee and groin on his left leg. was there.
“They checked my wounds and they were very bad,” Adams said. “It was amazing. But in my head, I knew that whatever happened, I had to get through it.”
“If I had waited until the day after the second visit, I might have lost my leg,” Adams said.
What is unusual about Adams’ case is that the infection was caused by a human bite. This is because the human mouth is actually full of bacteria, and if one person pierces another person’s skin with their teeth, infections can be transmitted through saliva. is.
“Human bites are dirtier than dog bites in terms of the types of bacteria that grow,” he says. Fritz Brink, an osteopathic doctor at HCA in Florida who treated Adams, told the Tampa Bay Times. “The presence of normal bacteria in abnormal places can be a serious problem.”
Adams was lucky enough to escape the infection, but lost most of his leg in the process of removing the infected flesh.
“They are torn between acting as aggressively as possible to stop the spread and leaving enough tissue to heal in less than two years,” Brink said.
Mr. Adams spent almost three weeks in the hospital, and he had to recuperate for another six months. “I never imagined that something as terrifying as a human-eating bacterium could evolve from a human bite,” Adams said.
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Necrotizing fasciitis is an infection caused by bacteria, most commonly caused by vibriobacteria such as he group A streptococcus or vibrio he vulnificus, that spreads rapidly throughout the body. These bacteria usually enter the body through wounds and bites and can begin to rot the soft tissues below the skin surface, such as meat fat, connective tissue, and muscle, putting patients at high risk of sepsis.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 1 in 5 people die from the infection, usually shortly after infection. Fortunately, necrotizing fasciitis is rare.
In the United States, only about 0.4 people per 100,000 people are infected each year.
