A WOMAN thought she only had a small cut - but nearly died after catching a flesh-eating bug from her flower beds. Louise Fawcett, 58, was enjoying a spot of gardening at her Chesterfield home and thought nothing when she scraped her foot on some shingle in April this year. However, when it rapidly began to swell up, the vision rehabilitation officer felt "pretty unwell".
Louise, from Yorkshire , said: "I couldn't wear shoes for dinner for Mark's birthday. I couldn't put any weight on it," Louise explained. The redness was creeping.
It was changing before their eyes She gave it a few days before going to her GP - who prescribed her antibiotics for an infection called cellulitis. But to Louise's horror, she woke up in absolute agony the following morning and her foot was "very purple". "The next morning I noticed the ankle looked like it had a port wine birthmark.
It was very purple," she added. "I thought it was sepsis." Quick thinking husband Mark, 59, rushed his wife to Chesterfield Royal Hospital for blood tests.
Louise said: "They took me into a little room. "The redness was creeping. It was changing before their eyes.
"They thought I might lose my life or my leg." Test revealed the 58-year-old had contracted a flesh-eating bug called necrotising fasciitis . Surgeons immediately raced her into theatre and opened up her foot to cut out the bug by removing infected tissue.
She spent three days in intensive care, underwent seven operations, including a skin graft from her th.
