Dad loses arm after grazing knuckles while working on his car

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

A father who had to have his arm amputated after developing deadly sepsis from a small graze has said he can’t even put on a pair of socks by himself.

Stephen Rae grazed the knuckle on his right hand while working on his car in May 2017, but dismissed it as a minor cut which soon scabbed over.

But a month later he was in hospital after his arm swelled up alarmingly, and was put on an IV drip for blood poisoning. The 40-year-old was initially released after 10 days but ended up being readmitted just weeks later after the infection returned, reports The Record.

READ MORE: "A&E? Don't bother": Man 'struggling to breathe' forced to lie down on hospital floor in 'horrendous' 10-hour wait

The dad-of-five said he thought he was suffering from a bad flu when his right elbow began to swell up again, passing out in the A&E waiting room before waking up in the ICU on life support.

But it turned out a cyst in his elbow had burst causing an infection to attack multiple organs as the sepsis took hold. Stephen had several more hospital admissions and brushes with death, before medics removed all the tissue from his forearm in January 2020 and later removed his elbow joint.

Then in May this year, doctors discovered that cells at the bone fusion site had turned necrotic meaning his best chance of survival was to have his entire limb cut off.

Recalling a heartbreaking phone call to his wife Kelly, Stephen, from Cumbernauld, Scotland, said: “I nearly died three times. It’s normally three strikes and you’re out so I am quite lucky. I was faced with never seeing my kids and wife again or having my arm amputated. There’s just no comparison so I told the doctors to take it off.

“I called Kelly to tell her and I could barely speak because I