One woman from England was given just hours to live after developing sepsis and a flesh-eating bug following a routine Caesarean section.
After Amy Hiner, 40, gave birth to her second child, daughter Evie, she developed necrotizing fasciitis and sepsis from the C-section, causing her to lose half of her stomach.
“It just keeps spreading and you’re literally being eaten alive,” Hiner told South West News Service.
She was first diagnosed with Strep A after coming down with a “burning” fever and excruciating stomach pain about five days after giving birth.
Doctors said that the infection was caused by “retained products” in her stomach. The Strep A soon turned into sepsis and then into flesh-eating bug necrotizing fasciitis, which materialized in black patches on her stomach, requiring emergency surgery.
“It was extremely frightening,” she revealed. “I could feel my body shutting down, and it felt like I had piranhas in my tummy.”
When someone develops necrosis, it means that the cells in their body tissue are dying, according to the Cleveland Clinic. It can happen if you get an infection or an injury, as Hiner experienced, or if there’s a lack of blood flow going to your tissues. It is often considered a medical emergency.
During the surgery, she had the “retained products” removed from her system and had to have the infection on her stomach cut out. However, when she woke up, her stomach still had black patches on it, and her condition continued to get worse.
Hiner was given just hours to live and was rushed back into surgery once again. This time, the surgeons had to cut all the way from her belly button to her bikini line in order to save her life. She said that they cut all the way into the layer above her organs.
She was left with a huge hole in her stomach, which had to be packed with bandages and a pump that took out the fluid and excess dead tissue.
“It was awful and I couldn’t even hold my baby,” Hiner said of the aftermath. “I was so broken. It took all my energy just to breathe. I had to learn to walk again.”
Hiner had a long road to recovery after she went under the knife, as the wound took almost a year to heal. She did not qualify for reconstructive surgery, either.
“I’ve been left horribly disfigured, with my belly slanting and scarred,” Hiner revealed. “It needs a full tummy tuck. And because of severed nerves, I feel like I’m being electrocuted if I lie on my right side.”
As a result of this horrifying ordeal, she said that she suffered from nightmares, night terrors, and panic attacks, which caused her to want to hide. Hiner was later diagnosed with PTSD and post-sepsis syndrome and had three years of therapy to try to help her feel better about what had happened to her.
“My mental health was the hardest part,” the 40-year-old admitted. “I hated myself. I couldn’t look in the mirror or shower without crying.”
Now, years later, Hiner has made a full recovery and has fulfilled her life-long dream of having her own ice cream truck. She purchased the sweet-treat vehicle after winning settlement money from the hospital in 2021.
She’s also begun to model as a side hustle and won a modeling competition in December. After posting her pictures on Instagram, she began to get a lot of offers to work in the industry, and has even filmed a few music videos and participated in a fashion shoot in London.
The mom knows that her stomach is not “perfect,” but that doesn’t matter to her, and she doesn’t think it should matter to anyone else, either.
Her daughter Evie is now 6 years old, and her older son Charlie is 11.
“I survived against all the odds and I’ve turned my life around,” she told the outlet. “Now I’m happy and earning more for myself than I ever did working for someone else.”
The model is now planning to add to her business by purchasing a second ice cream truck this summer and wants to expand to a warm-food trailer. She plans to take the funds to pay for her tummy tuck, which she said will end up ringing in at around $10,000.
“I realized you can lose everything in a heartbeat, and that gave me the push to follow my dreams,” Hiner said. “Maybe this is my happy ending.”