Bath woman who cut leg on run caught flesh-eating bug and ended up in a coma
A Bath woman has spoken out after a flesh-eating bug caught on holiday left her in a coma and with a deformed leg.
Keen runner Loubna Trott tripped and cut her knee while out jogging on holiday in Mallorca.
She later went for a swim in the sea, which is when flesh-eating bacteria managed to enter her system.
Following her return to England, she suffered septic shock and had to be put in a medically-induced coma.
"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,” she explained.
"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."
Despite the worrying prognosis, Lou managed to pull through - and came out of her coma a week later.
"It’s an absolute miracle that I survived because 70 per cent of patients die from it,” the 51-year-old said.
“Had it got to my pelvis, they couldn’t have done anything because they couldn’t amputate from there.”
Doctors had to operate on Loubna’s leg multiple times in order to remove the harmful bacteria.
She had to learn to walk again - a process that took several months - and is due to undergo further skin grafts in the future.
She added: "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 I am lucky to be alive.”
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