The most remarkable thing about Henry Clunies-Ross's story might be that he can see the bright side.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Sydney University and Australian sevens winger has spent the past three weeks recovering from a run-in with a rare and deadly flesh-eating bacteria that claims the lives of one in four people who encounter it.
He endured five surgeries, the "nuclear bomb of antibiotics" and regular spells in a hyperbaric chamber to kill it off and is now missing a large chunk of skin on his upper leg, which a plastic surgeon used in a skin graft to patch up the gaping wound on his right shin.
But after all the drama, triggered by an everyday tackle in the opening game of the Shute Shield season earlier this month, Clunies-Ross hasn't lost his sense of humour.
"At least I saved the try," he quipped.
"I saw Mack Mason make a break, chased him down, tackled him, hit the corner posts. My first thought was 'I hope he hasn't scored', so I got that job done.
"But my shin didn't feel normal. I looked down at it and that's when I saw a big flap of skin hanging off, a pretty nasty cut."
The exposed metal base of the padded post had sliced through Clunies-Ross's skin and two layers of muscle. A clip from the live broadcast shows the speedster look down and clutch his leg at the moment the flayed skin opens up.
The cut was just the beginning of a frightening four days that could form the plot line of a Netflix horror pilot.
Club medical staff took Clunies-Ross to the nearby RPA hospital, where a surgeon cleaned the wound and used more than 100 stitches to close up each layer of flesh. He was sent home that night in a "fair bit of pain" and endured a restless night.
"I woke up in the morning and was really, really crook. Sweating, shivering, started throwing up," he recalled. "I tried to get up and fell over. I couldn't stand up."
Clunies-Ross's girlfriend drove him to the Prince of Wales, which was close to his Randwick home.
"It's pretty blurry from there. I remember lying on the floor in the emergency department while my missus tried to explain to them I was unwell," he said.
"I can't remember much, a doctor seeing me and unwrapping all the dressings from the night before. I told someone I thought I had spiders on me so I was pretty out of it. I was operated on that night."
The actions of a quick-thinking registrar, Nick Haydon, and the urgings of Clunies-Ross's mother, a nursing unit manager, probably saved his leg, if not his life.
Less than 24 hours after that tackle on Mason, necrotising fasciitis, a bug they believe lay dormant in the turf at Sydney University's famed Oval No.2, was already eating its way through the healthy tissue in Clunies-Ross's leg.
"It's unusual to see what we did see in him," said Sean Nicklin, the Prince of Wales' head of plastic and reconstructive surgery. "It's a pretty significant infection from which, if there's a delay in the diagnosis, patients can quickly get very sick, become septic and go into shock.
"Even young patients can lose limbs or die from it. It was a good call by the registrar on that day, who saw him in emergency. It was less than 24 hours from the original treatment and he was already very sick. For a young, fit, healthy person that was significant."
Nicklin sees two or three cases of necrotising fasciitis a year, but the vast majority are elderly patients or those with pre-existing health conditions, such as diabetes. A case like Clunies-Ross comes along once every three or four years.
As fast as surgeons could clean out the dying tissue, the infection and its telltale redness kept spreading up the 24-year-old's leg. "Someone told me it spreads at four centimetres an hour," Clunies-Ross said. "I was pretty out of it but the look on my mum and dad's and my girlfiend's faces told me it was serious."
It took multiple surgeries, the help of infectious disease specialists, a cocktail of antibiotics and regular two-hour spells in the Prince of Wales' hyperbaric chamber - there is research suggesting the bug hates oxygen - to kill it off once and for all.
Clunies-Ross spent 16 days in hospital and will miss the rest of a season he hoped would be his breakthrough after a season in the Top 14 and with the Aussie sevens program. But he counts himself lucky and is determined to come back stronger than ever.
"I think my leg modelling days are behind me now," he said.
"I didn't realise how realistic a scenario an amputation was but [the medical staff] were all like 'wow, we saved it'. I'll put up with the scar I guess."
Sydney University Football Club and Sydney University Sport and Fitness said they hoped Clunies-Ross would make a full recovery.
"We are always very concerned for the health and well-being of all our athletes," the organisations said in a statement. "Henry is a valued member of the club and we have offered him a range of support. We hope for his full and speedy recovery."
- SMH/The Age
