Mom loses part of her thumb after horrific fake nail incident
A mother of four has lost the top of her thumb after she got blood poisoning from a fake nail incident.
Cherie Newman, 33, treated herself to a set of acrylic nails in July, but after leaving them on for four weeks, she decided to try to remove them herself instead of returning to the salon as usual.
After buying some nail remover, Newman accidentally tore off her real thumbnail along with the acrylic and caused it to bleed.
WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES
The mom-of-four visited the doctors for something unrelated one month later and was urged to seek immediate treatment at a hospital, as the tip of her thumb had turned purple.
“I didn’t think anything of the cut because it was so small,” she said, “so I left it alone and completely forgot about it. I had no idea that removing a fake nail could cause blood poisoning. When the sepsis kicked in my thumb turned purple.”
It turned out she had septicaemia (a severe bloodstream infection) and needed to spend six days in the hospital and have an operation to remove the top of her thumb.
“I was awake for the first operation that I had, but I couldn’t look at it. I had to have my thumb sliced open to properly wash out the infection,” Newman said. “However, the infection came back and it had got worse and I had to have a second operation, which I was put under general anesthetic for.”
She continued: “It wasn’t until two days later, when I had my dressing removed, that I saw the top of my thumb had been taken off and the nail had been removed. I was shocked, but I was told it was either that or my thumb would be removed.”
It’s since taken Newman five months to recover from the ordeal, but she said she hasn’t sworn off acrylic nails for good.
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
