Flesh-eating bug made my skin look like roadkill

Flesh-eating bug made my skin look like roadkillImage source, MARTIN GILES/BBCImage caption, Caroline Fonjock was initially told she could be in hospital for a year after contracting the flesh-eating bug necrotising fasciitisByNikki FoxEast of England health correspondentPublished16 June 2026Updated 17 June 2026Caroline Fonjock says she would be dead were it not for the quick actions of NHS medics.Feeling under the weather, the 45-year-old social worker noticed what she believed was a boil in her upper groin.She initially thought she had a routine urinary infection, but within 36 hours she was in and out of consciousness and vomiting what she describes as "black tar".Doctors later told Caroline, who lives near Haverhill, Suffolk, that the "boil" was in fact necrotising fasciitis – a rare infection that destroys tissue beneath the skin.She needed emergency surgery to survive.Five years on, her case is helping researchers in Cambridge improve how the condition is identified and treated.Image source, Family photographImage caption, Caroline's daughters (from left) Francesca and Eva were prepared for the worst outcome while she was in intensive careCaroline has type 2 diabetes and a history of infections but says the speed of this one was "just phenomenal"."I've had illnesses before but with all of them I felt in control," she says."With this, I didn't."In April 2021, during the Covid pandemic, her condition rapidly worsened.What she initially thought was a small boil began to "track" up her leg, feeling like a "hardened tube".At Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, a consultant told her she needed immediate surgery and multiple skin grafts and could need to spend up to a year in hospital."My response was, 'No, no, no – I've got babies at home,'" she says.But she was told going home was not an option."She said 'If you don't do this, you'll...