Mum-of-two was hit during dodgeball – sparking an injury that had her fighting for her life within days

A YOUNG mother has revealed how a flesh-eating bacteria nearly took her life after it infected her body through a graze – so small she didn’t even notice it.

Lesley Kane, 35, used to be fit and healthy and enjoyed nothing more than keeping active in her free time.

But after a game of dodgeball – where the main objective is to eliminate all members of the opposing team by hitting them with balls – her life was turned upside down.

When Lesley was hit, the impact caused a tiny graze on her left chest, triggering a horrific chain of events.

At first, she felt groggy, but only four days later she was rushed to hospital with little more than a 12-hour window to save her life.

Doctors discovered she was suffering from sepsis and a bacterial infection called necrotising fasciitis – more commonly known as the flesh-eating bug.

Lesley was taken into intensive care and underwent a series of operations to remove her left breast, as well as parts of her torso and back.

The brave mother-of-two thankfully fought her way back from the brink of death but says she is still struggling to recover six months on.

She has now revealed her ordeal in order to warn other people to always “get things checked”.

She said: “I was having flu symptoms but thought I could sleep them off. Just a few days later, I was in hospital fighting for my life.

“The doctors tried to establish what was wrong with me. They knew it was blood poisoning but they didn’t know the cause.

“After various tests and scans, they realised that I had contracted the bacteria.

“I think they worked out that the only place where there was an injury was a mark to my chest. It was bruised but there was no obvious injury.

“I’m assuming they knew there was a graze there. It was so small that I hadn’t noticed it.

“When I think about it, it was my flesh rotting. I was being killed by a flesh-eating bug.

“My body was shutting down at this point. The doctors said there was a 12-hour window and that if they did not operate I would die.”

The ordeal began when Lesley, of Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, was hit in the chest during a game of dodgeball with friends and colleagues in August last year.

She didn’t notice any pain or symptoms but developed flu-like symptoms which kept getting worse.

Lesley tried to sleep them off and decided to go ahead with a family holiday to the Netherlands with her husband Stephen, 40, and two daughters, seven and nine, in August.

But just one day after their arrival, she was severely ill with fever. Her family phoned emergency services who checked her over and rushed her to hospital.

She said: “I was pretty much out of it. They hooked me up to drips and medicine, and gave me whatever they could to keep me comfortable.

“They operated on me before midnight. They removed part of my chest, they cut a T-shape from shoulder to shoulder and then removed my left breast, part of my torso and my side down to my hip.

“My husband said I had four operations over 24 hours to remove the bacteria.”

Lesley was in intensive care for nine days battling for her life.

Recalling the moment she rose from her sleep, she said: “A week of my life was gone. I was still heavily sedated but there wasn’t much going through my head from what I remember.

“I just remember that I wasn’t surprised that it was my left side and it was the breast because that was one of my last memories that they were scanning my chest.

“But I didn’t know what I had or what I’d done.

“I think my initial surprise was that I’d been asleep for so long. To find out that it was over a week was quite shocking.

“It was just my husband who was there when I woke up. He never left my side.”

Due to the complicated operations and damage to her tissue, Lesley was then transferred 42 miles from the MCH Westeinde in The Hague to the Dutch Burn Centre in Beverwijk near Amsterdam.

She was forced to spend two months in medical care. Lesley said she had to relearn basic day-to-day activities such as walking, writing and brushing her teeth.

This determination meant that, to the surprise of her doctors, Lesley was able to return home to her family just two months after her ordeal began.

She added: “I was treated as a burns patient. The doctors don’t know how I managed to survive. I shouldn’t be here really.

“They waited until I wasn’t critical and put on like a vacuum thing to heal the wound to take away the bacteria and allow the healing.

“I went on to have four skin grafts. They grafted from my left leg. There were several surgeries and I took each day to try and improve my strength. When I left Holland, I was still using a wheelchair.

“I had to continue building my strength back up.

“I came back to Scotland but wasn’t able to go back to my life as it was before. I still couldn’t walk a great distance or carry out tasks like I used to.

“My day-to-day life was no longer how it was. I was tired – very tired – all of the time and on a lot of pain relief.

“I feel my mind is 100% but my body just can’t keep up with me.

“I’m getting there. I’ve returned to fitness and my physio and I’m trying to build my strength up but it’s a long journey and I have years of surgeries ahead to reconstruct and improve my scars.

“The support of my family and friends has helped me entirely. They’ve all been by my side.

“I’ve never been short of help. It’s been amazing and overwhelming.”

Lesley said she wanted to share the story about her incredible fight in a bid to warn others that even the slightest health issues could develop into serious conditions.

She added: “My message to others would be ‘don’t ever take life for granted’.

“I was always the type of person that thought you would get through anything.

“What started off as what I thought was a cold or flu was a lot worse than it was.

“People should always get themselves checked if they have health issues – no matter how little they are.”

Lesley’s friends have launched a fundraiser to help her with recovery.

Readers wanting to support it should go to www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/LesleyKane.