Flesh bug bites

By Callan Date
PEAK physical fitness gained through tough pre-season football training has helped a Narre Warren South man survive a life threatening infection.
However, it was an innocuous scratch that Michael Agnello suffered during a football match last Saturday week that turned his life upside down.
Only days after picking up the graze on his thumb, which occurred while playing for Hastings during a Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League (MPNFL) against Seaford, Mr Agnello was undergoing life saving surgery in Dandenong Hospital.
A rare infection had developed from the scratch and had started to spread up his arm.
So serious was the infection that the immediate objective for doctors was to save the 29-year-old’s life and then worry about saving his arm.
“They told my wife I had a 30 per cent chance of dying,” Mr Agnello said from his Dandenong Hospital bed.
He said surgeons had conducted three operations to stop the bacteria spreading up his arm.
“It’s a waiting game at the moment. I could possible need two more operations but they are pretty confident that I will have full use of my arm,” he said.
The first few days in hospital are somewhat of a blur for Mr Agnello but what is clear is the difficulty he had in getting initial treatment at Casey Hospital.
“I went to my local doctor at about 11am on Monday and he assessed it and gave me a penicillin shot.
“He then said to keep an eye on it and if it gets any worse to go to hospital,” he said.
Mr Agnello said his condition got considerably worse on Monday night as his arm continued to swell and the original scratch started to spread.
“I went to the emergency department at Casey Hospital and I sat in the waiting room for three hours.
“The scratch was still getting darker, longer and wider while I was waiting and I was in pain.”
Mr Agnello said he was losing his patience as other people, who had arrived well after him, continued to be seen by a doctor before he was admitted.
“One woman came in with what looked like a minor back injury and she went before me.
“After that I went and asked if I was next to be seen and they said I was three to four people away.”
Mr Agnello then left Casey Hospital in pure frustration and without being seen by a doctor.
“I was still in pain and had started to develop a fever and start to shiver by this stage.
“I called the Nurse on Call hotline about 10pm and they told me to get back to hospital.
“I said I wasn’t going back to Casey Hospital after what I had just been through so I ended up going to The Valley in Dandenong,” he said.
He said the treatment he got at The Valley Private Hospital and then at Dandenong and The Alfred hospitals was very comforting.
“Everything happened pretty quickly after that,” he said.
A spokesperson from Southern Health, which operates both Casey and Dandenong Hospital, said Mr Agnello was assessed as a category four patient, “which was appropriate given his symptoms and history.”
“At Casey Hospital emergency department 99 per cent of people are seen within three hours of attending,” the spokesperson said.
Southern Health said that Mr Agnello chose to leave after a two and a half-hour wait. But Mr Agnello said he had waited over three hours before he left.
Mr Agnello, who has two children with wife Sarah-May, said the support he had received from his family, friends and team mates had helped him through the chilling ordeal.
“The doctors told me that the surgery would do half the job but the other half was up to my body.
“They said being fit, healthy and young played a major part in pulling through. I had a massive pre-season at Hastings so that helped.”
An infectious disease specialist told Mr Agnello that the bacteria that had caused him so much grief was regularly found in humans.
The 1994 Brisbane Bears draftee said he hoped to take to the football field again.
“Initially I thought that was it for footy but things are looking a lot better now,” he said.