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Canadian team member fights flesh-eating disease
VICTORIA (CP) -- A member of Canada's national rugby team is in a Victoria hospital isolation unit fighting life-threatening flesh-eating disease.Pat Dunkley, 27, was described Wednesday as being in good spirits after undergoing two operations, but doctors said he was not yet out of danger.
He was scheduled to undergo his third operation since Monday on an infected area of his right leg located between his calf and thigh muscles.
Doctors said Dunkley likely contracted deadly necrotizing fasciitis -- the same disease that cost Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard one leg -- after suffering a puncture wound to his right leg during a rugby test match last Friday in Western Somoa.
"This is by no means something that is over and done with," said Dr. Dave Hepburn, a doctor with the national rugby squad and Dunkley's personal physician.
"It's much too early in the game to predict the final outcome here," he said. "His condition is associated with a life-threatening situation."
So far surgeons have only removed dead tissue from the area surrounding Dunkley's wound, said Hepburn. No muscle or bone has been taken from his leg.
Necrotizing fasciitis is caused by a number of different bacteria. One of them is Group A streptococcus, the bacteria that causes sore or strep throats.
It can destroy human tissue at a rate of almost three centimetres per hour and in some cases can cause death within 18 hours.
Dunkley's wound occurred when a player stepped on his leg during a game against Fiji's national team, Hepburn said.
"(The wound) produced a portal of entrance for the organism," Hepburn said.
Dunkley developed a pain in his leg that persisted on the rugby team's lengthy flight back to Canada. He checked into the emergency unit at Victoria's Royal Jubilee Hospital after enduring fever and more pain.
David Clark, the team's coach, said Dunkley appeared sick after arriving in Canada on Sunday, but nobody had any idea he was suffering from flesh-eating disease.
"He woke up in the middle of the night with a raging temperature of 103-plus. Then he was being physically sick and he couldn't bend his leg and it was extremely sore. His roommate, the next day at lunchtime, said 'You better get to hospital.' And within the hour, they were operating on him."
Dunkley, like the other members of the Canadian squad, endured a 42-hour trip back from Western Samoa, where the team had played in the Epson Cup Pacific Rim rugby internationals against Samoa and Fiji, Clark said.
The Canadian players suffered in the heat of the South Seas, with almost half the team falling prey to diarrhea and one player, Duane Major, needing an intravenous drip before the Fiji game.
Dr. Pamela Kibsey, a Victoria medical microbiologist, described Dunkley's operations as a "filleting" process where surgeons remove dead tissue under the skin without cutting muscle.
Kibsey said antibiotics were prescribed for members of the rugby team and any friends and acquaintances Dunkley may have interacted with in the last few days.
She said the disease appears to be an isolated incident at this point.
Visitors to Dunkley's cramped isolation room are currently being restricted, Hepburn said.
"He's a very popular young man," said Hepburn, who cracked that Dunkley possessed above-average intelligence for a rugby player.
Dunkley made his international debut for Canada against Japan in 1998.
The six-foot, 222-pound hooker from Victoria played in all three World Cup games last fall.
He made his mark at the World Cup by shaving his head during the tournament.
Canada plays Japan on Saturday in Markham, Ont.
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