Post by JoannaL on Oct 21, 2021 19:32:27 GMT -5
Dog Bite Infection Kills One, Another Will Lose Legs
Barry Harris of Colchester, Essex England, paid £1,500 for a 15-month-old Japanese Akita (above) advertised by a London seller on Facebook. Although the woman selling the animal assured Harris the dog was “well-trained,” when he got the mutt home, he discovered “Ted” wouldn’t even respond to his name.
Less than six weeks later, the dog bit him on the lower arm when he was attempting to remove a bone from the animal’s mouth. Shortly thereafter, the area where Harris was bitten became extremely swollen and he developed cold sweats. Three days later, he died of a heart attack.
On the day of the funeral, the dog bit Mark Day, Harris’s brother-in-law, on the hand and the following morning he awakened with a 102° fever and what he described as “legs like blocks of ice.” When he was examined by the doctor, he was immediately hospitalized and shortly thereafter physicians discovered he was suffering multiple organ failure, which was followed by cardiac arrest. Doctors diagnosed a bacterial infection related to the dog bite. In an attempt to control the necrotizing infection coursing through his body, surgeons amputated the fingers of Day’s left hand and next week, he will lose both legs.
When Pauline Day, his wife, learned the infection that killed her brother and was now threatening her husband’s life was caused by the dog bites, she had the Akita, which had food issues, destroyed. “Whenever it was near food it was so aggressive,” she declared.
Neither of the bites was severe, nothing more than “nips,” in fact. “Ted literally just broke the skin on my husband and my brother,” Mrs. Day said. “It’s like something out of a nightmare. You just don’t believe this has happened. The shock of my brother was one thing and then my husband. It’s just surreal.”
According to Medical News Today: “If a dog bite pierces a person’s skin, bacteria from the animal's mouth can get into the body . . . cause an infection, such as tetanus, rabies or sepsis.” It was also noted that such infections can spread from the wound site to other parts of the body leading to extremely serious complications including amputation and death.
Sources: Neil Shaw and Sophie Finnegan, ChronicleLive, October 20, 2021; and Anabelle Doliner, Newsweek, October 20, 2021.
See also “Dog Saliva Infection Causes Man to Lose Several Body Parts.”