The Dangers of Bath Salts
Authorities now believe the injection of bath salts caused a flesh-eating infection in woman causing her to lose her arm, shoulder, and breast.
The woman says she injected the bath salts into her arm at a party. She then developed a life-threatening condition called necrotizing fasciitis after injecting the bath salts. The 34 year-old had to undergo surgery to remove the infected tissue.
Doctors say the woman, examined by Dr. Russell Russo at Louisiana State University, complained of painful red forearm. The woman was initially given antibiotics and treated for a skin infection, as the doctors were unaware that she had injected bath salts. The pain lingered on and that’s when the woman admitted to injecting bath salts. After her admission, the doctors found she had developed the flesh-eating disease.
“The infection moved so fast that pink, healthy tissue was literally dying before the surgeons’ eyes” stated a university spokesman.
“They had to keep removing tissue until they reached clear margins of healthy tissue to stop the progression of disease” he continued.
“By the time they were finished, the patient’s arm, shoulder, and collarbone had to be amputate, and a radical mastectomy
performed.”
Doctors are now warning other surgeons of the severity of effects caused by bath salts.
Click here to read one of our previous bath salts articles.
Bath salts have been banned in England and other states around US. Bath salts are man-made stimulants that resemble the scented bath powders. The drugs are a powerful hallucinogenic. The drugs are marketed under the names Aura, Ivory Wave, and Vanilla Sky.
“Despite the drug’s legal status, it must be treated as illicit, and one must be suspicious when examining a patient with this clinical history because the diagnosis of flesh-eating bacteria can masquerade as abscesses and cellulitis,” stated Dr. Russo.
By South Carolina Criminal Defense Lawyer Pete Strom
