A 54-year-old American woman woke up in the hospital with her legs and hands missing. The cause ? She had a very rare reaction to the saliva of one of her dogs.
Notice to animal lovers. Even though dogs are still man’s best friend, sometimes their saliva can cause serious infections. This is what Marie Trainer, a 54-year-old woman from Ohio (United States) suffered. She had to have her hands and legs amputated. Doctors say one of her two dogs licked a scratch on her arm, causing her immune system to inflame. They had to remove her limbs because gangrene set in when she was in a coma.
One in a million cases
It all started when Marie Trainer thought she was suffering from the flu. As her temperature rises alarmingly, she goes to the hospital. Very quickly, other symptoms appear: the American suffers from liver and kidney failure and excruciating pain in the hands and legs. Unable to breathe on her own, the medical team decides to place her in a coma. Within hours, gangrene and necrosis begin to eat away at his limbs.
Then, blood tests give the answer: it is Capnocytophaga canimorsus infection, a bacterium found in the saliva of dogs. This type of life-threatening reaction occurs one in a million times when a person comes into contact with saliva, either through a simple lick or a bite. Last year in the United States, a man also had to have four limbs amputated.
“They couldn’t do anything”
The body can trick the immune system into doing “horrible things,” says Dr. Margaret Kobe, medical director of infectious diseases at Aultman Hospital. In Marie Trainer’s case, blood clots damaged tissue in her hands and legs. She had to have surgery at least six times and spent nearly three months in hospital. Her daughter-in-law, who works at the hospital, assures us that if she had not been amputated, she would have died. “The progress was so fast… They couldn’t do anything,” she told Fox 59.
Today, Marie Trainer faces an uncertain future. She receives support from her husband, who feeds and dresses her every day. To help him adjust to his new life, an online fundraising campaign was created. It has already raised nearly 16,000 euros.
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