Flesh-eating bug hacks into mum’s cut knee

Loubna Trott, 51, was in Mallorca, Spain, with her husband and young daughters when the flesh-eating bacteria entered her system.

A few days after flying back to England, she went into septic shock and endured several operations to save her life, leaving her with a “deformed” leg, The Sun reports.

“Every morning I would go for a run and one day towards the end of the holiday, I tripped and grazed my knees and my hands, I actually ripped my sports leggings,” Ms Trott said.

“There were quite a lot of people out that morning so I just carried on running, trying to pretend I was alright.

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“I forgot about it for a few days but when we flew home there was a heatwave in the UK and I remember being really, really cold. Like I was shivering even though it was really hot outside.”

Ms Trott said she had blurred vision and was tired all the time, before suddenly throwing up and collapsing in the bathroom.

“My husband called an ambulance, but the paramedics said I had just caught a tummy bug on holiday,” she said.

The next day, Ms Trott rang her GP and told them she thought she was dying. She managed to get an appointment with a doctor and her husband drove her to the surgery.

“I was really, really lucky I had someone there who knew what was wrong. I remember her saying ‘I think you have got sepsis’ and I went straight to A&E,” she said.

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Although her memories are still fuzzy, Ms Trott said she remembered hearing people crying while she waited to be seen in the RUH.

“I heard a woman saying ‘I wasn’t ready for you to go’ as someone passed away and I was trying to convince myself that I wasn’t going to die too.

“Bacteria from the sea had gone into the graze on my knee and this flesh-eating bug, called necrotising fasciitis, had got into my leg and eaten all the way up from my knee to my thigh.

“I went into septic shock and they put me in a medically-induced coma. It was a massive threat to life and I went into multi-organ failure, but I didn’t know any of this until I woke up.

“At one point they were just taking it by the hour and they told my sister, who lives in New York, that I might not make it through the night, so she had to fly back.”

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However, against all the odds, Ms Trott pulled through and came out of her coma a week later. She said the doctors told her that it was only because she was in such good shape that she survived.

“It’s an absolute miracle that I survived because 70 per cent of patients die from it,” she said.

“Had it got to my pelvis, they couldn’t have done anything because they couldn’t amputate from there.

“They were just pouring in antibiotics and they kept cutting and cutting until the bug was completely gone.

“I was in surgery three or four times and then they had to prepare me for plastic surgery. It was the most horrific thing anyone could go through.”

When Ms Trott woke up, she saw her family gathered around her but she still didn’t know whether she was dead or alive.

“It was something to do with the drugs I was on, but they all had plastic orange faces that looked like dinner plates.

“They were looking at me and smiling and saying ‘you are so strong’, but I didn’t understand and I kept telling them I wasn’t there,” she said.

Once she was able to stand, Ms Trott had to learn how to walk again and at first, she could only manage two or three steps at a time.

“It took over a year to get back to normal, I couldn’t even pick up a hairdryer. I was scared of running and I was scared of the sea,” she explained.

“I suffered PTSD and flashbacks, but I have been trying to get myself stronger and stronger.

“The reason I survived was that I was fit, so now I think I have to stay fit to stay well, especially with COVID.

“My leg is horrendous, it looks like I have been in a fire. I have got skin grafts from the other side of my thigh – that was really, really painful.

“I do look at it and feel sad but I know am lucky to be alive,” Ms Trott said.

She still has two more skin-graft surgeries to go through, but they have been delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the mum-of-two has started running again to help her get over her PTSD and has already completed several challenges for charity, including a half-marathon.

She said: “I saw the run for prostate cancer and my dad died of prostate cancer four years ago. I felt his presence when I was in the hospital and I wanted to give something back.

“I just signed up and started running. It’s been a really strange journey, but I find that I don’t worry about the small stuff anymore.

“When you have been so close to death, you appreciate every moment.”

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission