A TEENAGE cricketer had her thumb amputated and replaced with her big toe after botched surgery.
Britney Thomas, 17, fractured her left thumb playing cricket in Victoria, Australia in March, 2018.
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She had surgery at Latrobe Regional Hospital, but rushed back six days later in agony after doctors bungled the operation.
Doctors found Britney’s thumb had turned black after a tourniquet was left in place and were forced to amputate her thumb, swapping it with her toe.
Britney told ABC: “They took me into emergency and they were like, ‘Oh, you’re probably going to lose your thumb.
“I was in so much disbelief.”
She added: “People ask me, they’re like “Oh why does your thumb look so weird? And I’m like, “Because it’s not my thumb, it’s my toe.””
BLOOD-SUCKING LEECHES
Britney split a bone in her thumb playing cricket in Hong Kong.
She was raced to hospital where a surgeon fixed the fracture and put her hand in a plaster cast.
But when she returned in excruciating pain doctors found her thumb had died.
Leanne Keating, Britney’s mum, said: “They pulled the plaster off and it was very dark, looked very dead.”
Doctors applied blood-sucking leeches to try to get blood pumping to Britney’s hand.
They took me into emergency and they were like, ‘Oh, you’re probably going to lose your thumb. I was in so much disbelief
Britney Thomas
They even sewed her thumb to her groin to try to restore the thumb’s flow of blood.
But medical staff were finally forced to amputate Britney’s thumb.
The cricket-mad teenager has been left with limited use of her left hand and a piece of her hip removed and put in her foot.
She had to drop out of school because she missed so much class after the gruesome injury.
And Britney’s dreams of becoming a professional cricketer have been dashed as she is not able to hit a ball.
Britney said: “I couldn’t grip the bat.”
Tom Ballantyne, a lawyer who represents Thomas, told The Washington Post: “It was an uncomplicated fracture, an uncomplicated surgery and a pretty awful mistake.
“It was a really basic, gross error of leaving the tourniquet on.”
Latrobe Regional Hospital launched an investigation into the horrific incident
The hospital’s chief executive Peter Craighead said: “I felt sick in the stomach. It’s very devastating, you know, that you see something happen like that.”
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