Farm Worker Dies After Horsefly Bite Triggers Deadly Sepsis Weeks Later.
He still had feelings for other people — he even made me take chocolates for his nurses tending to him. I think he knew he was going to die.
His mother recalled him as a hardworking and kind man who had been born into a farming family in Widdrington and had kept the family tradition going by working on dairy farms, although he also tried his hand at painting and decorating. Photo/SCREENGRAP
By Ruth Sang
A Northumberland farm laborer has died after suffering from an unusual sickness that was weeks following being bitten by a horsefly while on the job on a farm. The tragic incident caught his friends and family by surprise, as a seemingly innocuous insect bite proved fatal.
According to Daily Mail, Andrew Kane, aged 31, was bitten by a horsefly while working on a farm in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. At first, he paid little attention to the bite and believed that it was merely a harmless annoyance. The bite produced only a red mark and a slight itch, and Kane believed that it would recover right away. But his mother grew worried when the small wound failed to improve and persuaded him to visit a doctor.
“He wasn’t fazed,” his mother explained. “You think it’s a little bite that’s red and sore, and then you think it will heal. But the hole in his arm just wouldn’t heal.” The doctors put him on antibiotics, which worked at first. But tragically, two weeks later, Kane just fell over when he was out socialising with friends. He was rushed to the Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital in Cramlington, where medics discovered he had developed sepsis — a potentially deadly reaction to infection.
Kane spent five weeks in intensive care. He was transferred to Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital, where he was placed in an induced coma. At some point, he had been giving good indications of recovery, but his condition deteriorated rapidly. “They were hopeful, then it came back more severely and spread very quickly. His organs started to fail,” his mother remembered crying. “I waited with him all day in hospital. He even inquired if I had told his mates that he was there.”. He said to me if I didn’t, then they’d not show up to his funeral. He still had feelings for other people — he even made me take chocolates for his nurses tending to him. I think he knew he was going to die.
Sepsis, or blood poisoning, is a severe condition where the body’s response to infection leads to swelling in the entire body. This can lead to tissue damage, organ dysfunction, and death in severe cases.
After weeks of battling the disease, Andrew Kane passed away on September 18. He is survived by his young daughter. His mother recalled him as a hardworking and kind man who had been born into a farming family in Widdrington and had kept the family tradition going by working on dairy farms, although he also tried his hand at painting and decorating.
It’s been terrible,” she explained. “He was such a robust one — I never believed that something as little as a fly bite would kill him. To see him deteriorate so quickly was repulsive. I just can’t accept that he’s dead.”
Kane’s death is a sad reminder of how quickly infections, even from something as mundane as a fly bite, can turn deadly if left untreated.
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