This Man Nearly Died After Cracking His Knuckles Led to a Flesh-Eating Infection
The movement apparently dislodged a scab and exposed him to an infection—and it wasn't pretty
At some point in your life, you've probably been told that cracking your knuckles can cause arthritis. The good news? Science says it isn't true. The bad news? Cracking your knuckles could still indirectly lead to a flesh-eating bacterial infection that consumes most of your finger and a huge swatch of skin up to your elbow.
At least, that's what happened to this guy.
Antoine Boylston, a service technician in Lexington, Kentucky, contracted a near-fatal infection after he absentmindedly cracked his knuckles at work, ripping off an existing scab and exposing himself to a horrific bacteria. To be clear — cracking his knuckles did not give Boylston the bacteria, it just re-opened a prior cut that let the contagion enter his system.
Boylston contracted the infection in April of 2016, and recently released images of his gruesome recovery. The infection left his little finger hanging off his hand and required a surgical skin graft down almost the entire length of his arm to heal. When it was all over, he had lost his pinkie finger and most of the function in two more digits on his right hand. The pictures, naturally, are pretty horrific.
"Doctors warned I may lose my hand but if I had waited much longer I could've lost the entire arm or died," Boylston said, according to the Press Association. "I had only heard of flesh-eating viruses from movies. I didn't think that was a thing people could actually get."
Boylston was in the middle of a normal day of work when he cracked his knuckles, like normal. But apparently the movement dislodged a scab, and exposed him to an infection. Within hours, he was feeling extremely nauseous, and his hand was swelling up. He figured he had a broken finger, and went to the University of Kentucky Hospital in Lexington.
"By the time I arrived, my right hand had started to darken and swell," he said. Doctors immediately told him he didn't have a broken finger — it was something far worse. He was rushed into surgery for a skin biopsy, which turned into doctors cutting open his arm from fingers to elbow to cut the infection out. He'd contracted necrotizing fasciitis, a catastrophic infection that can quickly turn fatal.
"It wasn't until I woke from surgery and was told I had necrotising fasciitis that I understood the severity of it all," Boylston said. "The infection had spread through my hand from the cut, almost to my elbow."
Necrotizing fasciitis can be caused by a number of different bacteria, but research shows that methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, otherwise known as MRSA, is the culprit behind up to a third of cases.
Open wounds in unsanitary conditions — like this man's mosquito bite after Hurricane Harvey — can let the infection in. Once it's in the body, the bacteria start to multiply rapidly and release toxins that kill off healthy cells and tissue and stop blood flow to an area of the body. Since the bacteria went in through the cut in Boylston's finger, that's where they attacked first.
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"It was like dipping your hand into a bucket of ice," Boylston said. "It was so cold that it burned. Doctors weren't sure if I'd regain blood flow, but it'd returned to most of them after a day or two. However, it was pretty clear that I would lose my pinkie [little] finger. It looked like something from a zombie movie, hanging from my hand and was kind of starting to smell weird."
Fortunately, doctors caught the infection in time. Boylston said it took a three-hour procedure to cut the initial infection out and amputate his pinkie finger, and then another procedure during his week in intensive care. Even though he's out of danger, he still struggles to use the remaining fingers on his hand.
Still, that hasn't stopped him. During his rehabilitation, Boylston says he got into the world of "strongman" tournaments, which he competes in despite only having two fully-functioning fingers left on his right hand. He's finished in the top five in both competitions he's entered.
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"I try to never use my hand as an excuse for poor performance, but it does bother me sometimes," he said. "Typing, swinging a hammer, and holding small items is a pain. I can't form a fist." Pocket change, he said, is a particular nightmare, because he forgets he can't hold it. "But, I'm alive — and I will never crack my knuckles again — I can't."
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