EXCLUSIVE: A Melbourne mother-of-two has told how a tiny cut on her forearm almost killed her after it suddenly got infected and a flesh-eating disease took hold.
Two days earlier, Amanda Stacey had been working her normal shift as a kitchen hand at a Melbourne RSL club when she had a seemingly minor fall.
"I was doing some cleaning at the time and I just slipped," Stacey said of the accident in September last year.
"I hit my arms on the bench on the way down and my bottom on the floor."
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Stacey said she was more worried about her bruised right arm after the fall, and barely registered the little cut on her arm, which her colleague put a small bandaid over.
With more work to do, Stacey dusted herself off and finished her shift.
It wasn't until Stacey was back at work just under 48 hours later that she started to "feel a bit off".
Stacey was sent home sick but said she had almost no memory of that, or the events that followed.
"I only found out what happened that night by going through my text messages later," Stacey said.
"I had sent a message to one of my friends saying, 'I'm at home in bed, laid up and sore everywhere. If you need me I'll be asleep.'"
Stacey was home alone, with her two children staying at their father's place for the weekend.
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Luckily, Stacey's 14-year-old daughter tried to ring her and grew concerned when several of her calls went unanswered. She then raised the alarm with a friend of her mum's.
When Stacey's friend came to check on her, she found her unconscious and with an extremely swollen arm.
"The doctors said two more hours and I would have been dead, that's how fast these sort of flesh-eating infections move," Stacey said.
Stacey was rushed to Footscray Hospital in an ambulance, where she would spend the next 10 days in a coma.
While she was in a coma in intensive care, doctors operated on Stacey to remove the dead and infected skin from her forearm, as her family waited anxiously by her bedside.
"The doctors were saying to them every single day, she might not be here tomorrow," Stacey said.
Stacey said she was stunned when she woke up and was told how close she had come to death.
"I didn't know what had happened," she said.
"There was a big tube down my throat. It was such a shock. I couldn't talk, see properly, or walk."
Stacey spent the next three weeks in Sunshine Hospital before being discharged.
Unable to work while recovering from the flesh-eating disease, Stacey said she found herself struggling physically and financially.
"I had money saved up, but soon my savings were gone," she said.
Stacey's friends advised her to seek legal advice about whether she could claim compensation through the government's WorkCover compensation scheme.
"I wasn't sure at first, because I'm not that sort of person," Stacey said.
"I love my boss and I didn't want to put any more financial strain on him. I had to do something though, otherwise my kids were going to be the ones that suffered."
After being reassured that any money paid out would come from her workplace's insurance cover, Stacey engaged law firm Slater and Gordon to make a claim on her behalf.
Her claim was successful and she is now being paid a large proportion of her weekly wages through WorkCover.
Slater and Gordon workers' compensation lawyer Michelle Cavalieri, who acted on behalf of Stacey, said many people are under the misapprehension that an employer needed to be at fault before a worker's compensation claim could be made.
"It doesn't matter how your injury occurred …you could have been walking and tripped on your own shoelace and hurt your knee," Cavalieri said.
"It's no-one's fault, but if it occurred at work - or during your work hours - you're still entitled to make a claim."
Under WorkCover, payments can be made to replace lost wages and to cover medical expenses.
A year after the accident, or when an employee's injuries are considered stable, they can also make a further claim for a lump sum impairment benefit.
For cases involving potential negligence and serious injury, claims are made under common law.
Stacey said she hoped that sharing her story would raise awareness about the dangers of flesh-eating bacteria.
"I'm usually the type of person who just keeps on going and doesn't stop," she said.
"In this case I should have taken it more seriously from the beginning."
Contact reporter Emily McPherson at emcpherson@nine.com.au
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