A 19-year-old student had both legs and all ten fingers amputated after consuming leftover takeout from his refrigerator, which doctors believe sparked a potentially fatal condition.
Dr. Bernard Hsu, a registered toxicologist, presented the horrific case in a YouTube video.
According to The New England Journal of Medicine, the man became unwell and had to be taken to the pediatric critical care unit of a hospital in Massachusetts, the United States (US).
The teen, identified in the YouTube video as “JC,” had started experiencing abdominal pain and nausea after eating rice, chicken, and lo mein leftovers bought from a restaurant the day before.
The journal says JC started vomiting and experienced chills, generalised weakness, chest pain, shortness of breath, neck stiffness, and blurry vision.
WATCH: ‘TOXIC NOODLES’ CASE EXPLAINED
A friend who had taken JC to hospital had also eaten the noodles told doctors that he too vomitted but didn’t become as progressively sick. Doctors then decided to study JC’s medical history a bit further to determine just how he differed from his friend.
According to the journal, just hours before JC’s admission to hospital, his skin turned purple and he developed a severely high temperature, a pulse of 166 beats per minute, and had to be sedated. He also suffered blood clots and kidney failure. Tests would later reveal that his blood contained the bacteria Neisseria meningitidis.
“When bacteria is present in the blood, the entire body’s blood vessels dilate, dropping the blood pressure preventing oxygen from getting into the organs,” Dr Bernard explained.
Doctors say while his condition improved, the tissue on his fingers developed gangrene, as did his legs down to his feet. This left them with no other choice but to amputate parts of all 10 fingers and below his knees.