A mother had a medical nightmare after a bikini shave went horribly wrong, and nearly cost her life.
Dana Sedgewick, 44-years old, a former chef from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, trimmed her pubic area with a brand new razor. After shaving, she noticed a small spot which kept bleeding, but she ignored it as she often got a rash from shaving.
“I didn’t think anything of it as I often got a rash from shaving,” she said. “Little did I know that this tiny pimple would almost cost me my life,” she added.
Two days later, she started feeling dizzy and nauseous. She went to a doctor and prescribed her antibiotics and took swab of the area. But later that day, her daughter discovered Dana in bed with a huge red rash covering her legs.
Dana’s doctor later called to say that she had a serious bacterial infection and that she needed to go in for another examination. But when husband Mat dropped her off at the surgery, she collapsed.
“By the time I got to the hospital, my legs were covered in black, rotting flesh,” Dana said. “It was touch-and-go as to whether I’d make it,” she added.
She was rushed to the to the trauma unit at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield. Doctors diagnosed her with the deadly flesh-eating bacterial infection, necrotising fasciitis, which is a flesh-eating infection.
Over the next ten hours, surgeons battled to save Dana’s legs from ampuatation. Cutting through seven inches of infected skin, they removed the diseased flesh and reapplied skin from her back.
She went into septic shock, her kidneys failed, and her heart stopped four times. She was given just a 30 percent chance of survival.
Luckily, Dana survived. “When I woke up, my legs were covered in bandages and I had no idea what had happened. I thought I’d been in a car accident,” Dana said.
“But when the surgeon asked me if I remembered shaving, I suddenly recalled trimming my bikini line. “He told me that the spot on my groin had become infected, and I’d been very lucky to survive.” She added.
She required 21 operations after the shave and doctors told her that she may never walk again.
She said, “It was horrific. All of my muscle had rotted away, and I had a crater of skin near my groin. I felt like I was going to throw up. But I knew that it could have been much, much worse. I could easily have lost my legs – or worse, died.”
Necrotising fasciitis is a rare but serious bacterial infection that affects the tissue beneath the skin, the surrounding muscles and organs. It’s often referred to as a “flesh-eating” disease, though the bacteria don’t eat the flesh. Rather, they release toxins that damage the nearby tissue.
Sources:
Leave a Comment