Single Mother's Rug-Burn Becomes Limb Amputation After Doctors Discover Son's Sore Throat

Feb 10, 2020 by apost team

People have small accidents every day but usually, we just shrug them off and move on. It's rare that minor cuts or grazes affect us on a bigger scale but in this story from 2015, one mother from Wisconsin had her minuscule rug-burn turn into a life-threatening issue. She was lucky to survive, however, doctors were forced to amputate her leg in the process.

Alecia Kennen's story began in 2015 when she grazed her shoulder on a rug in her Wisconsin home. 37-years-old at the time, the mom-of-three accidentally fell over one of the family dogs and landed on a rug. This led her to get a very small rug burn on the top right of her shoulder. While an inconvenience, she passed it off as nothing more than a little graze.

But it was shortly after her fall that Kennen noticed a very sharp pain developing under the armpit of the shoulder she fell on. It very quickly became so unbearable that she had to go to the hospital. The tiny rug burn had escalated from a graze into a full-blown illness that put the mom in the Intensive Care Unit. While her illness escalated, Kennen then had to fight for her life. 

In an interview with Fox 9, Kennen said that she never thought that it could be anything worse than an annoying burn, but she soon realized how wrong she was. Not only did it become a serious issue, but this mother was a single mom raising three young men all by herself. 

When Kennen got to the hospital, the medical staff realized just how much danger she was really in. In just a couple of days, she was in the ICU fighting for her very life. The mom was dealing with internal bleeding. All of her vital organs were starting to shut down as her lungs filled with fluid. Her feet started to turn black because she was not getting enough oxygen and blood flow to her limbs. In her interview with Fox 9, Kennen said:

"The nurse knew right away. The doctor knew right away that something was wrong." 

The doctors frantically tried to perform exploratory surgery to discover the root of the problem, but they still had no clear diagnosis. They talked to her immediate family and told them to prepare for her death. She told the news outlet:

“They had told my family that there wasn’t a clear answer and they weren’t sure what it was and I was losing the battle."

But it wasn’t until one of her young sons mentioned that he had a sore throat that the medical staff realized what was going on. Kennen was dealing with a common illness. However, in her case, it was a rare occurrence that snowballed into something much more serious and cost a lot more to her health. Fox 9 reported that she was diagnosed with Group A Strep Toxic Shock Syndrome. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention define the disease as "an infection with Streptococcus pyogenes accompanied by sudden onset of shock, organ failure and frequently death." 

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Despite a 30 to 70 percent mortality rate, Kennen was incredibly lucky to stay alive. However, she continued to have problems for the next few years and eventually lost one leg below the knee and all of her toes and fingers to the so-called "flesh-eating bacteria." For the three years following her initial ordeal, the infection returned and continued to cause problems for the mother of three. She told CTV News in 2019:

“It’s been hard. Obviously, my goal, always, was to still be able to take care of my boys.”

After she had her leg amputated, everything she did took twice as long, so Kennen planned to get a prosthetic limb to help her with mobility. A friend set up a GoFundMe page to help cover the costs and eventually in 2019 she received a prosthetic leg and underwent physiotherapy to be able to learn how to walk using it. Inside Edition accompanied her on her journey where she gave an interview into how she had been. She told the news outlet:

"I'm happy, I'm excited, I guess maybe even a little bit sad, just the fact of, you know, what has brought me to here."

Since then, she's bravely used her story to speak out and warn others of this rare illness. She told CTV News:

“My main goal is to let people know that it can happen and to know the signs and symptoms because I didn’t."

We wish Kennen and her boys all the best as she continues on her recovery journey. 

Were you as astonished as we were to hear what was wrong in Kennen's case? Pass this on to those you know to spread awareness of this rare illness. 

Our content is created to the best of our knowledge, yet it is of general nature and cannot in any way substitute an individual consultation by your doctor. Your health is important to us!