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EXCLUSIVE: Man Dies From Cat Bite… FOUR YEARS Later: Flesh-Eating Bacteria Entered Blood After Finger Pinched By Adopted Stray Dog
- Henrik Kriegbaum Plettner adopted a cat and her kittens from a shelter in 2018
- He was bitten trying to move one of the kittens and his hand swelled up
- Doctors had to amputate her finger but were unable to stop the spread of the infection.
A Dane whose finger was bitten by a cat four years ago has died after flesh-eating bacteria infected his blood.
Henrik Kriegbaum Plettner adopted a cat and her kittens from a shelter in 2018 and had his index finger bitten off after trying to move one of the kittens.
He didn’t think about it until he realized that his hand had swelled to twice its size in just a few hours.
He called a doctor, but was told to wait until the next day, and after several consultations, he ended up in Denmark’s Kolding Hospital.
Henrik Kriegbaum Plettner, whose finger was bitten by a cat four years ago, died after a flesh-eating bacterium infected his blood.
He was hospitalized there for a month, during which he underwent 15 operations.
But four months after the operations, the finger was still not working properly and the doctors decided to amputate it.
Despite this, the 33-year-old’s health began to decline, with his mother telling local media: “He was in very fluctuating health.”
“He had a weakened immune system, pneumonia, gout and diabetes.
“The cat had bitten right into a blood vessel, and when a cat bites and pulls the tooth out, the hole closes up and the bacteria spreads.”
Doctors had to amputate her finger after the infection spread in the months after the bite.
Because the wound closed almost immediately after the bite, the bacteria entered his bloodstream through the vein and stayed in the body.
Tissue infections in cat bite wounds are usually caused by a pathogenic bacterium known as Pasteurella multocida.
In certain cases, this can sometimes lead to a rare bacterial infection called necrotizing fasciitis which can be fatal.
Because the wound closed almost immediately after the bite, the bacteria entered his bloodstream through the vein and stayed in the body where it began to spread.
Plettner’s family says he died in October, but they have now gone public so others will take cat bites seriously.
Plettner’s family says he died in October, but they have now gone public so others will take cat bites seriously.
The man’s widow, Desirée, said: ‘We knew he was doing it wrong.
“However, we had no idea that he was so seriously ill.
‘Go to the doctor after a bite, don’t think, oh, that’s just a cat.
Don’t risk it.