North dad back home after fishing trip injury, hospitalisation
Frederick Nel spent almost a month recovering in hospital after an injury during a fishing trip resulted in a dangerous blood infection.
A father of six from Kameeldrift is finally back home after spending nearly a month in hospital recovering from a dangerous blood infection.
The 39-year-old Frederick (Frik) Nel never thought a small cut on his leg, which he sustained during a fishing trip, would almost cost him his life.
The “tiny” cut got infected and soon Nel had to fight for his life and leg at the Zuid-Afrikaans hospital.
After almost a month in the hospital, with bills accumulating as he did not have medical aid, Nel finally came home this week.
“We’re very happy that my brother is out of the hospital and seems to be recovering well,” said Nel’s sister, Melanie Landsberg.
Landsberg told Rekord on Friday that Nel recently went for a check-up at the hospital and that the doctors were satisfied with his recovery progress.
READ MORE:Father battling infection after fishing trip injury
“The draining pipe came out and the wound looks much better now,” said Landsberg.
Nel went fishing last month at Hartbeespoort dam where he had accidentally cut his leg while in the water.
“He started feeling sick the following week and thought it was the flu,” Landsberg explained.
“Turns out his body had gone into septic shock.”
On March 22, Nel was rushed to a government hospital at first.
“There wasn’t an open bed for him at the hospital, so he ended up going to the private hospital.”
Landsberg said at the Zuid-Afrikaans hospital, the family had to pay a deposit of R25 000.
On the same evening, after Nel was admitted, he was moved to ICU due to breathing and heart complications.
“He was placed in a medically induced coma for almost two weeks,” said Landsberg.
At this time the infection from his wound had spread and doctors had to consider amputating Nel’s leg to save his life.
Luckily, Nel’s leg could be saved and he was slowly brought out of his coma during the Easter weekend.
After more complications and operations to drain abscesses from his leg, Nel finally recovered well enough to be sent home.
The family is still struggling to pay off the accumulated medical bills from his time in the hospital.
They have started a BackaBuddy fundraising campaign.
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