This news item from South Carolina is about Dave Bennett and his recent experience with MRSA Necrotizing Fascitis in a surgical wound:
The 39-year-old had been passing out before arriving at The Regional Medical Center, where it was confirmed that he was bleeding internally and needed an operation. He seemed to be doing fine the first two days after his initial surgery until an odor, which one nurse compared to rotten fish, began to permeate his room.
Bennett constantly ran a fever, and his surgical incision was opened to make sure that none of his intestines were caught in it and possibly causing the offensive smell.
Bennett’s wife, Peggy, knew something was wrong.
“We asked about him being on antibiotics. He was never actually put on them until after they had to do a second surgery. The doctor that did the surgery was going to release him the very next day. The infection specialist then came in and said that he had to have emergency surgery,” Mrs. Bennett said.
Why?
“The muscles were all rotted, or necrotic. The bacteria was coming from the inside of his stomach out. It was eating its way out of him. I really don’t know how to explain it. The odor would just get stronger and stronger. He had friends to come visit. They couldn’t even stay because it was so bad. We couldn’t understand why they were not giving him antibiotics after major surgery,” Mrs. Bennett said.
“I could have died. Luckily, I didn’t. If it had went another day or two, I don’t think there would have been anything left to save,” Dave Bennett said
Bennett said he was in pain before a second surgery had to be performed to remove the dead tissue from his wound. A Gortex mesh was put over the wound, but was not providing adequate ventilation. A third surgery was then performed to cover the wound with a net-type mesh.
That wasn’t the end of Bennett’s troubles, which began with a wound which had to be cleaned twice a day. The wound had become so infected that his daughter, Nikki, said it was green and yellow.
Bennett developed a massive, bulging hernia following his third surgery.
“It just kept getting bigger and bigger, and Dave said it hurt all the time. We ended up taking him to a surgeon in Columbia. I had to call in to pre-register him for surgery, and the Columbia doctor had something on the side of the paper in capital letters that read MRSA,” Mrs. Bennett said. “That’s when I found out that that’s what Dave had. We never found that it was the flesh-eating bacteria until we went to another surgeon in Columbia.”
Story from The Times and Democrat
