HOW NEGLIGENCE CAUSED MOTHER OF TWO TO LOSE HER LEG TO A 'FLESH EATING' BACTERIA CONTACTED FROM SPIDER BITE
Mother-of-two loses her leg to a 'flesh-eating' bacteria she contracted from a small SPIDER BITE she thought was 'nothing to worry about'
- Bridgette Garza, 39, from Texas, noticed a pimple on her bottom last year September
- Because of the pandemic, she avoided getting the pimple checked out
- But 10 days later, she woke up hallucinating with her leg covered in blisters
- She spent 17 days in intensive care and lost her leg - from a suspected spider bite
A woman has lost her leg to a flesh-eating bacterial infection after a suspected spider bite.
Bridgette Garza, from Texas, noticed a pimple on her bottom that she thought was 'nothing to worry about' but was admitted to hospital just 10 days later after she started to hallucinate and developed blisters on her leg.
The mother-of-two was diagnosed with necrotising fasciitis, a serious bacterial infection that affects the tissue beneath the skin and surrounding muscles and organs, and spent 17 days in intensive care.
She underwent seven surgeries, eight skin grafts and had to have her left leg amputated below the knee as medics battled to stop the spread of the infection.
'At this point, I didn't even know I had half a leg missing.
The doctor told me there was a 2 per cent chance of survival so I felt incredibly blessed.
'I was also told the surgeries were life-threatening as I could have been a chance of me bleeding out every time.
When he uncovered me, I couldn't see anything past my knee and began crying.'
Bridgette doesn't know how she contracted the deadly virus but medics predict it was a spider bite.
She spent four weeks in hospital and had to learn how to walk again.
Holding back the tears, Bridgette added: 'They began asking me where I had been to contract the bacteria but I'm a homebody, especially with coronavirus so I didn't know where it was from.
'They took skin from my right thigh, sides of the stomach and from my back.
'I don't wish the pain from healing from a skin graft on anybody - it felt like the skin was falling off my bones.'
She was discharged on October 28 2020.
She added: 'At first, I thought it was the end of the world, I couldn't take more than two steps at a time using a frame. But I never broke down, I didn't dwell on it.
'I knew I had to get home to my kids and a pity party wasn't going to get my leg back.
'I had to make the best out of the situation and work my hardest to get a prosthetic leg.
'They said it will take longer because I am Type 1 Diabetic but I managed to walk again within eight months.
'My leg looked like a beef jerky stick, it was raw and boney.
'It didn't look like a leg at all but I have fat on it now.'
Bridgette wants to give other people some 'hope' by sharing her story.
She said: 'I am independent again, I can cook, clean, go shopping or out with my kids.
'Some tasks just take a little longer.
'I have realised it is just a foot and I now have another one.
'I wear my prosthetic for eight to 10 hours a day.
'I have a ball on the ankle part so it
'I want to show my kids that you can't give up.'
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