Flesh-eating disease eats away fitness fanatic dad-of-three’s arm…after sore throat

A flesh-eating disease caused by a sore throat ate away a fitness fanatic’s arm.

Mark Brooks needed 25 operations to cut away the muscle on his left arm after he was diagnosed with necrotising fasciitis.

The 54-year-old blames going to the gym and pulling a muscle in his arm while recovering from a sore throat for the disease developing.

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“I was fine and completely healthy and it came completely out of the blue,” Mark said.

“And then all of a sudden, I’m fighting for my life. It was ridiculous.

“I had the worst sore throat I’d ever had.

“Then I went to the gym and did an intense workout.”

Mark of Grimsby, Lincs, also told Need To Know: “I was also fasting so I think that paved the way for the illness.

“While I was working out, I tweaked my elbow which was no big deal.

“Then I developed a fever so I slept like a champion.

“When I woke up, it felt like I’d smashed my elbow really hard on the bedside table. It was killing and I couldn’t use it.

“After that, I developed a fever and started puking like a champion.

“I thought it was bad luck that I had a bad elbow, a sore throat and food poisoning.

“I remember sitting on the carpet thinking that my decision making capacity was diminishing and that I only had one good decision left in me.”

The dad-of-three went to hospital and medics assumed he had compartment syndrome, a painful condition from dangerous pressure buildup in a muscle compartment.

But he was rushed into surgery when a large bruise appeared out of nowhere.

Mark was diagnosed with necrotising fasciitis, or the flesh-eating disease that was eating away his skin and muscle.

He had 25 operations to remove the dead skin, brachialis muscle, much of his tricep, a finger flexor and the connective tissue between muscles.

The bacteria had also entered his bloodstream, triggering his kidneys to shut down.

Mark said: “I was in ICU for a week.

“They told me I had multi-organ failure.

“That sounded really bad.

“At one point, you could see straight through my arm.

“There was bone with nothing supporting it.

“It was grim to look at.”

Mark spent nine weeks in hospital and still has more surgery to come.

Doctors used a vacuum pack to keep the limb viable while fighting infection.

Skin was later harvested from his leg and back in agonising graft procedures.

He said: “The donor sites were worse than the arm.

“I woke up in the worst pain of my life, crying uncontrollably.

“They removed a muscle from my back and swung it around to rebuild my arm.

“Then they removed fat from my stomach and packed it into my arm to support the exposed bone.

“If I’d gone to an orthopaedic surgeon, they would have amputated.

“One different decision, one different hospital, and my life would be totally different.”

The cost of reconstruction has already reached around £450,000, covered by insurance, with tens of thousands more expected.

Mark says he developed PTSD since the ordeal in December 2023.

He added: “The antidote was gratitude.

“Thinking about what I still had, not what I’d lost.”

“Necrotising fasciitis has a mortality rate of around 20 per cent – but in my case it was closer to 50% so I’m just thankful to be alive and have all my limbs.

“Hopefully, by telling this story, it saves someone else’s life.”

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