Jaco Nel was playing with his dog Harvey when he noticed a scratch on his hand. He was a 50-year-old doctor: he cleaned and disinfected the wound, then carried on with his day.
Two weeks later, confusion left him disoriented. He didn’t even hear the phone when his workplace called looking for him. That night, his partner found him in a terrible state and called emergency services. The paramedics knew immediately: it was sepsis, an overreaction of the immune system to an infection. The cause was a bacterium present in the saliva of his cocker spaniel.
The infection interfered with his blood clotting. His kidneys began to fail, and his legs turned black as gangrene progressed. He was in a coma for between four and five days, and when he woke up, his body had darkened: his face, hands and legs. He spent two months on dialysis. Four months later, both his legs were amputated below the knee; he lost all the fingers on his right hand and one on his left, as well as the tip of his nose. His lips were left scarred, and to this day he has difficulty speaking and eating.
Three months after the operation, he was walking again without assistance. His most painful decision came at the end: he had to have Harvey put down to prevent him from infecting anyone else.