A Florida man almost lost his leg — and could have died — from a rare flesh-eating bacterial infection, which developed after he was bitten in the thigh during a family fight.
Donnie Adams, a 53-year-old funeral assistant from the Tampa suburb of Riverview, went to the emergency room in mid-February to treat a bump the size of a dollar coin on his upper left thigh.
He was sent home with a tetanus shot and antibiotics, but the injury got worse over the next few days, becoming red, swollen and painful to the touch.
His thigh "almost looked like an orange peel because of the swelling that was underneath it," Dr. Fritz Brink, a wound care specialist at HCA Florida Healthcare who treated Adams, told NBC News.
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"By day number three, the leg was swollen, it felt very warm and I had problems with mobility and everything," Adams said on Friday.
Brink said Adams told him that he sustained the bite while breaking up a family altercation.
Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.
