Dad almost lost his hand after scratching finger gardening
WARNING: Graphic images.
A dad almost lost his hand after picking up a killer bug while doing the gardening.
Steve Palmer, 34, was left with his flesh eaten away to his tendons after he accidentally gave his hand a small scratch while clearing garden waste.
Medics were forced to rebuild his hand using skin pulled down from further up his arm.
Now safely home in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, air conditioning engineer Steve has spoken out to warn other people to be more careful when pottering around in the garden.
He said: ‘I can’t believe something like this could happen from gardening.
‘I’ve never known pain like it, it was excruciating.
‘I had scratched it on the Saturday, by the Sunday morning it was inflamed, and by the afternoon I could no longer move.
‘By Sunday evening, the skin was rotting away – I’m lucky to be alive.’
Steve had been clearing flood damage to his garden with his wife Laura, and sons Charlie, seven, and Jacob, three, when he suffered the tiny scratch.
He had thought nothing of it, but by the next morning was unable to move his finger.
As he noticed his finger begin to swell, he put cream and a plaster on in an attempt to stop the inflammation – but when he lost the ability to move it and had a violent fever, he realised it had quickly escalated.
By nighttime, he was shaking, with fever and stabbing pains.
Just 24 hours later, Steve found himself in Good Hope Hospital, where doctors initially diagnosed him with sepsis.
But as his heart rate quickened and his fever failed to break, he was transferred to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, for specialist care.
Doctors realised he was suffering from Necrotising Fasciitis, a rare but serious bacterial infection that affects the tissue beneath the skin and surrounding muscles and organs – and acted to save his hand and his life.
According to the NHS, one or two of every cases of the disease are fatal.
Steve has been forced to undergo four surgeries, clearing the wound of infection and having a skin graft from his upper thigh.
Initially treated with antibiotics, Steve’s arm continue to rot – to the point where he could see the infection spreading up his arm.
Steve added: ‘I could see my tendon on my middle finger – the pain was excruciating to the point where I had my head in my elbow.
‘The doctors cleaned out the infection initially but that followed with a four and half hour surgery just to try and get rid of it all.
‘When they were able to reconstruct my hand, they tunnelled the flesh from further up my arm, and then pulled it down over my hand and then I had to have a skin graft over it.
‘But I’ve got no feeling in my right hand now, all the nerves are damaged.
‘But now I know, it’s so important – always wear gardening gloves and clean out any scratch – no matter how small.’
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