Dad killed on holiday after small cut was infected with flesh-eating bacteria

Charlotte said her father's cut was 'tiny', but quickly began to cause him pain.

A British holidaymaker died after ‘grazing’ his leg on a piece of wood and going swimming in the sea in Turkey where he picked up an extremely rare flesh-eating bacteria.

Doctors were unable to stop the infection spreading despite amputating the leg of Brit Phillip Maile, 65, twice.

Phillip, from Worthing, West Sussex, was diagnosed with a deadly skin infection called necrotising fasciitis while holidaying in Oludeniz, Turkey, with his wife, Vanessa, in September 2022.

His leg started quickly turning black and blue a few days after going swimming in the Mediterranean despite his wound being dressed in a waterproof bandage and being told that salt water would be ‘beneficial’.

The father-of-three was rushed to hospital on September 9 , where, over the next five weeks, doctors attempted to prevent the infection from spreading by cleaning his wound and amputating his leg above the knee and then at the hip.

Despite their efforts, Phillip sadly passed away on October 13, 2022. Now, his daughter Charlotte, 32, plans on running the Abingdon marathon to help raise money for the Lee Spark NF Foundation, which aims to raise awareness about Necrotising Fasciitis and support those whose lives have been affected by it.

She said: ‘Of course, when you’re in that situation you cling to the smallest pieces of hope that you possibly can and when they get taken away from you and you are already at the absolute depths of despair, you just go completely numb.

‘I do not want people to be absolutely terrified of going in the sea because it’s so incredibly rare and my dad wouldn’t have wanted that either because he absolutely loved swimming and had he got through all of this there’s no doubt that he would have been back in there.

‘But the second that you have a small cut or an open wound that is causing you more pain than it should be, bypass everything and get to the hospital because the chances are it will stop it from spreading and it can literally spread right in front of your eyes.’

Charlotte said her father’s cut was ‘tiny’, but quickly began to cause him pain. They took him to hospital, where they were told the infection came from the sea.

Phillip’s wound became infected with a rare type of bacteria called Vibrio vulnificus, sometimes dubbed the flesh-eating bacteria, as it can trigger necrotising fasciitis, a severe infection where the flesh around an open wound dies.

Charlotte was on a work trip in Ireland when her stepmother, Vanessa, called to say that her father had been taken to the public hospital.

At first, doctors were unable to put their finger on why Phillip was in so much pain but there were signs that his condition was getting worse, with his leg turning blue and black.

On September 9, just 24 hours after receiving her stepmother’s call, Charlotte and her siblings, Sarah, 37, and Edward, 35, were told to board a plane to Turkey as their father was being ‘blue lighted’ to the Antalya Lara Anadolu Hospital.

Her stepmum, Vanessa, had arranged for them all to stay in a serviced apartment seven and a half minutes’ walk away from the hospital.

Charlotte said: ‘From that day on we would walk to and from the hospital twice a day where we would get an update from the doctors who were amazing.’

In a bid to halt Phillip’s infection from spreading doctors raced to clean and remove the dead or infected skin, a procedure known as debridement.

Unfortunately, the procedure failed and on September 14, Phillip was transferred to the intensive care unit after developing sepsis.

‘It was on that day that we were pulled into a room to make a decision. They said, the only way we can attempt to try and stop this from spreading is to amputate.’

Later that evening, doctors amputated Phillip’s leg above the knee before he was placed on life support.

He suffered septic shock after the operation and had to be placed on dialysis to clean his blood, but there was a sliver of hope a few days later when Charlotte and her family returned to the hospital.

‘They thought that had done it and we had a couple of days where we thought this is going in the right direction because even though he was intubated there was no necrotic smell,’ said Charlotte.

But their hopes were dashed on September 20 when doctors removed Phillip’s bandages to find signs of necrosis and suggested amputating the rest of his leg.

Again, the operation failed to prevent the deadly bacteria from spreading and, after fighting for another three weeks, Phillip died on October 13, 2022.

After losing their father, Charlotte’s sister, Sarah, contacted a charity called the Lee Spark NF Foundation which was established by Dee Cartledge, who lost her son to the same disease in 1999.

Through the organisation, they have met ‘inspiring people’ including some who managed to survive the deadly disease, which Charlotte said has helped them feel less alone.

Charlotte plans on running the the Abingdon marathon on October 20, 2024 to help raise money for the charity and has already raised more than £2,500 on GoFundMe.

She said: ‘I have been completely blown away about how much support I’ve received for doing this.

‘My truly, truly heartfelt thanks to absolutely every single person who has taken the time to firstly read the story, and then feel that they’re able to donate. Honestly, the foundation helped us in our darkest, darkest time where we thought we were entirely on our own.’

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