A holidaymaker is lucky to be alive after a tiny cut was infected by FLESH-EATING bacteria which removed so much tissue you could see his tendons.
Aussie John Capretta was on his first holiday abroad to Koh Phangan island, Thailand, over Christmas.
The 25-year-old network engineer, from Melbourne, Australia, was out with friends on Christmas Day when he slipped and cut his left leg on some metal.
Thinking nothing of it John got a few stitches and carried on with his holiday but two days later people he was staying with noticed his leg had swollen up like a melon.
John said: "When I got the cut at first I went to a clinic and waited a while, so I went up to the hospital with it and just got some antibiotics.
"Two days later it had swelled right up and they took me to hospital and opened it up, they said it was full of necrotic tissue - eating away at my leg."
"I don't know how it happened but the doctor said in Thailand the bacteria are on steroids," John continued. "It's the combination of wet and warm weather.
"I knew then I was going to spend the rest of the trip in hospital. They came every day and just cut away some more dead flesh. The wound was so deep you could see inside my leg.
"I ended up having five or six procedures and two more when I got back to Australia."
Now two months later John is finally home in Melbourne learning to walk again and thankfully he had travel insurance to pay for the massive £21,000 medical bill