Sometimes it’s best to stay out of a fight — even if you’re just trying to break it up.
Donnie Adams, 53, from Florida, jumped into action when relatives got into a physical altercation. His good deed, however, caused him to be bitten on the upper thigh in the process. Adams tended to his battle wound, but a few days later he noticed the bite mark was turning into something more serious.
“By day number three, the leg was swollen, it felt very warm, and I had problems with mobility and everything,” Adams told NBC News.
Adams was taken to the hospital in mid-February, reported the outlet, to treat a bump “the size of a dollar coin on the upper left thigh”. He was sent home after receiving a tetanus shot and antibiotics, only for the injury to worsen over the next couple of days — becoming red, swollen and, according to Adams, “painful to the touch.”
Dr. Fritz Brink, a wound care specialist at HCA Florida Healthcare who treated Adams, said his thigh looked “like an orange peel because of the swelling that was underneath it.”
While Adams won’t say what set off the family brawl or identify the person who bit him, he admits the events were “quite a storm.” Now though, he is on the fast track to recovery.
“Flesh-eating disease, or necrotizing fasciitis, is a life-threatening condition that can be caused by a variety of different strains of bacteria, including group A strep and other bacteria found in water, dirt or saliva,” explained NBC.
“More often than not, it’s a normal bacteria that lives on our skin, and they utilized a weak point from an injury as an entryway,” said Dr. Brink.
According to News in Health, the human mouth is “home to about 700 species of microbes,” which include germs like bacteria, fungi and more. Despite that number, Dr. Brink said it’s “rare to see life-threatening infections” from a human bite, but as Adam’s case proves, anything is possible.
“Family is everything, and sometimes things go down in families,” Adams said. “I’m a man of faith. People can be forgiven, and that’s the way I feel about that. It was a family event that went sour between two people, and even though I got in the middle of it and I got injured, it doesn’t mean I’m going to hate my family over this.”
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