A dog's lick back in June led to a Wisconsin man having his legs and hands amputated after contracting a life-threatening bacterial infection, WITI-TV reported earlier this week. "Take what you need, but keep me alive," he told doctors cutting away the diseased tissue.
Greg Manteufel, of West Bend, became ill last month with what his family initially thought was the bad case of the flu, according to the website Waukesha Patch, but when his illness became worse, doctors discovered that he had contracted Capnocytophaga canimorsus, a bacteria found in dog saliva.
National Center for Biotechnology Information said Capnocytophaga canimorsus can cause "severe sepsis and fatal septic shock, gangrene of the digits or extremities, high-grade bacteremia, meningitis, endocarditis, and eye infections."
Doctors told Manteufel that he probably received the infection from a dog lick in June, WITI-TV reported on Monday.
"It hit him with a vengeance. Just bruising all over him. Looked like somebody beat him up with a baseball bat," his wife Dawn Manteufel told WITI-TV after watching her healthy husband lose his limbs after the incident.
"It took a week and they were taking his legs," she told the television station.
Dr. Silvia Munoz-Price, infectious disease specialist with the Medical College of Wisconsin, told WITI-TV she believed Manteufel had a fluke reaction to the infection.
"Sometimes (the blood pressure) decreases so much that the arms and legs just die," Munoz-Price said. "More than 99 percent of the people that have dogs will never have this issue. It's just chance."
Dawn Manteufel said the incident has not taken away her husband's spirit to live.
"We can't wrap our heads around it that all of the sudden, he's 48 years old and been around dogs all of his life... and this happens," Dawn Manteufel told WITI-TV. "That's all he kept saying to the doctors -- 'Take what you need, but keep me alive.' And they did it. Surprisingly enough, they did do it."
A GoFundMe page was set up for expenses for Manteufel and has raised $70,000 so far toward a goal of $100,000.
"Greg is going to need several more surgeries, lots of healing time and his family by his side to get thru this life changing event," Manteufels' GoFundMe page stated. "During this process while his family and friends are in panic and chaos, Greg has held his head high and is taking all the news like a beast. He is so thankful to be alive today and is taking one day at a time."
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