Notable cases • 1994:
Lucien Bouchard, future premier of
Québec, Canada, who was infected while leader of the federal official opposition
Bloc Québécois party, lost a leg to the illness. • 1994: A cluster of cases occurred in Gloucestershire, in the west of England. Of five confirmed and one probable infection, two died. The cases were believed to be connected. The first two had acquired the
Streptococcus pyogenes bacteria during surgery; the remaining four were community-acquired. The cases generated much newspaper coverage, with lurid headlines such as "Flesh Eating Bug Ate My Face". • 1997:
Jeff Moorad, former agent and partial owner of the
San Diego Padres and
Arizona Diamondbacks, contracted the disease. He had seven surgeries in a little more than a week and later fully recovered. • 2004:
Don Rickles, American stand-up comedian, actor, and author, known especially for his
insult comedy, contracted the disease in his left leg. He had six operations and later recovered. The condition confined him in his later years to performing comedy from a chair. • 2004:
Eric Allin Cornell, winner of the 2001
Nobel Prize in Physics, lost his left arm and shoulder to the disease. • 2005:
Alexandru Marin, an experimental particle physicist, professor at
MIT,
Boston University, and
Harvard University, and researcher at
CERN and
JINR, died from the disease. • 2006:
Alan Coren, British writer and satirist, announced in his Christmas column for
The Times that his long absence as a columnist had been caused by his contracting the disease while on holiday in France. • 2009:
R. W. Johnson, British journalist and historian, contracted the disease in March after injuring his foot while swimming. His leg was amputated above the knee. • 2011:
Jeff Hanneman, guitarist for the thrash metal band
Slayer, contracted the disease. He died of liver failure two years later, on May 2, 2013, and it was speculated that his infection was the cause of death. However, on May 9, 2013, the official cause of death was announced as alcohol-related
cirrhosis. Hanneman and his family had apparently been unaware of the extent of the condition until shortly before his death. • 2011:
Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction author, contracted the disease. On his blog, Watts reported, "I'm told I was a few hours away from being dead ... If there was ever a disease fit for a science-fiction writer, flesh-eating disease has got to be it. This ... spread across my leg as fast as a
Star Trek space disease in time-lapse." • 2013: British actress
Georgie Henley revealed in 2022 that she had contracted the disease several weeks after starting at Cambridge University and that it had almost claimed her life. • 2014:
Daniel Gildenlöw, Swedish singer and songwriter for the band
Pain of Salvation, spent several months in a hospital after being diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis on his back in early 2014. After recovering, he wrote the album
In the Passing Light of Day, a concept album about his experience during the hospitalization. • 2014: Ricky Bartlett, SAG-AFTRA actor & S.O.V.A.S. voiceover artist, lost both legs to 'NF'. He contracted the disease during a trip to Wyoming and South Dakota. • 2015:
Edgar Savisaar, Estonian politician, had his right leg amputated. He got the disease during a trip to Thailand. • 2018:
Alex Smith, an American football quarterback for the
Washington Football Team of the
National Football League (NFL), contracted the disease after being injured during a game. He suffered an
open compound fracture in his lower leg, which became infected. Smith narrowly avoided amputation, and eventually returned to playing professional football in October 2020. Smith's injury and recovery is the subject of the
ESPN documentary
E60 Presents: Project 11. • 2019:
OG Maco contracted NF after an untreated rash. • 2021: Irish actor
Barry Keoghan revealed in 2024 that he contracted NF shortly before filming
The Banshees of Inisherin and nearly had his arm amputated. ==See also==