THORN AGAIN: Woman Who Lost Leg To Bone-Eating Infection Overjoyed At New Limb

The woman who lost her leg after bacteria destroyed her bones when she trod on thorns has told how her new prosthetic limb has liberated her.

Gabriela Melo, 29, trod on tiny thorns while out with friends on a barefoot walk in a rural area near her hometown Uba, Brazil, in December 2017.

She told local media at the time: “To this day, I don’t know exactly what I stepped on.

“Both my feet were left injured, I used a lot of alcohol and ointment, but the thorns were very small, you couldn’t see them.

“A few days later I began to feel pain in my legs, my knees swelled up.”

Gabriela went to see an orthopaedist and, later, a rheumatologist. She went for a test, which confirmed she had developed an infection.

Gabriela Mello Mendes, 29, poses in undated photo. She contracted a bacterial infection after stepping on thorns at a farm and had to have part of her leg amputated, in Uba, Brazil. (@gabiiimello/Newsflash)

She was sent home with a course of antibiotics and told the pain would pass.

But later that month, her temperature soared and red spots broke out on her hands.

Early the next month (January 2018), she went in for a transoesophageal echocardiogram to check her heart.

Medics discovered she had a vegetation – a growth of germs and cell pieces – on her heart valve.

She was rushed to intensive care and placed in an induced coma, where surgeons replaced her damaged valve with one from a pig.

Following the op, Gabriela suffered two heart attacks. Medics managed to revive her, but her other organs began to collapse due to sepsis.

Gabriela Melo, 29, poses with her new prothesis, undated. She contracted a bacterial infection after stepping on thorns at a farm and had to have part of her leg amputated, in Uba, Brazil. (Newsflash)

Thanks to a blood transfusion, her condition began to improve and she was able to leave the ICU in mid-February.

She told local media at the time: “I lost a lot of weight, I was left with bedsores all over my body, even on my head. I still have the marks today.

“I had to relearn how to walk and breathe, I was fed via a tube for more than 30 days.

“While I was recovering, however, my left foot began to necrotise. The tips of my toes and my heel.”

Gabriela was discharged from the hospital to avoid developing a new bacterial infection but continued visiting regularly for treatment.

She underwent surgery in April to remove the necrosis. Her toes improved, but the wound on her heel failed to close.

She told local media at the time: “The years went by, I was treated, but my heel failed to improve and only recently did I discover that I had osteomyelitis, an infection in the leg bone.

Gabriela Mello Mendes, 29, poses while hospitalized in undated photo. She contracted a bacterial infection after stepping on thorns at a farm and had to have part of her leg amputated, in Uba, Brazil. (@gabiiimello/Newsflash)

“That was when medics decided to amputate part of my leg.”

Gabriela underwent the operation, where surgeons removed her left leg just below the knee, on 14th September this year.

She has now told local media how her new prosthetic leg has set her free following her five-year ordeal.

She told local media: “I left on foot on the same day that Dr Fabricio, the doctor who performed the operation, made the mould for me.

“I felt liberated. It was pure happiness. I’m walking much better than before. Thank God I’ve already adapted to the prosthesis. I have a normal life.”

Gabriela is now dreaming big, with plans to play futsal and other sports again.

Gabriela Mello Mendes, 29, (right) poses with unidentified women (left) in undated photo. She contracted a bacterial infection after stepping on thorns at a farm and had to have part of her leg amputated, in Uba, Brazil. (@gabiiimello/Newsflash)

She told local media: “I want to be able to show as many people as possible that it is possible to be disabled and have a happy and normal life.”