A Wisconsin man has lost his hands and legs after he contracted a life-threatening bacterial infection from a dog.
Greg Manteufel loved riding his Harley motorcycle but might not be able to ride it again after his limbs had to be amputated after he got a blood infection which doctors believe he contracted after a dog licked him.
A friend of Manteufel’s created a GoFundMe account for him in which it described the motorcycle lover feeling ill on June 27.
“Within hours of the onset of symptoms, Greg’s body started to go into septic shock,” the fundraiser post read. “Once Greg was admitted to the hospital, they were able to confirm the reason Greg was septic.”
Manteufel had contracted a bacteria known as Capnocytophaga Canimorsus, a bacteria found in healthy dogs and cats that causes “severe sepsis and fatal septic shock, gangrene of the digits or extremities, high-grade bacteremia, meningitis, endocarditis, and eye infections” when a dog bite occurs, according to a study by the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
The bacteria “hit him with a vengeance,” his wife, Dawn, told Fox 6 Now.
“Just bruising all over him,” she said, referring to the blood spots that began appearing all over his body. “Looked like somebody beat him up with a baseball bat.”
Days after he was admitted to the hospital, doctors amputated Manteufel’s feet. When more damage was sustained, he underwent a second surgery that amputated his legs through both of his kneecaps, according to his GoFundMe.
His hands — all of his fingers down to mid-palm, were also removed, with doctors telling his family his nose would need “extensive repairs” to rebuild it.
Dawn told the Washington Post she was not sure which dog transmitted the bacteria to her husband was a dog lover and had been around eight dogs around the time he became ill.
“He loves dogs,” she told the newspaper. “He would touch any dog; he doesn’t care.”
While he may have lost his limbs, Dawn said Manteufel was determined to remain positive.
“He told the doctors, ‘Do what you have to do to keep me alive,'” Dawn said. “There’s no negativity from him so far… He said, ‘It is what it is, so we have to move forward.'”
“There’s no choice. We have no choice but to be positive and make the best of it,” she added.