A British tourist has starkly warned others not to wear flip-flops on motorbikes, after a pothole crash left her bones exposed and with a gruesome infection.
Angel Willows, 28, was riding a moped in Bali, Indonesia, with her cousin when they crashed after hitting a pothole.
They hit the concrete road below and Angel a personal trainer, originally from Guildford, Surrey, was left with the combined weight of the scooter and her cousin on top of her. The metal bike stand had pierced her left foot, leaving her with a deep wound, as she had been wearing flip-flops.
In agony, the British tourist was rushed to a nearby hospital but claims her cousin – who is a nurse – had to inform hospital staff the wound needed washing before being stitched up. On top of this, Angel said her stitches weren’t done properly, leaving her left foot still bleeding, before it turned a sickly yellow colour.
She said: ‘I was in shock, I thought I just needed a plaster initially. We went to the closest emergency place and they gave me stitches. It was a bad job. My cousin is a nurse and she was having to give them instructions.’
After getting it redressed by a chemist, Angel and her cousin flew to Sydney, , where they still had several days left on their visa, to get it checked out by better-qualified doctors.
There, doctors said her foot was badly infected and that she was at risk of losing it.
‘To be honest I didn’t realise how bad it was until I got to . I just thought I’d be in and out with more stitches but it was much worse than I originally thought’, she said.
‘It was scary when they said I could have lost my foot because of how bad the infection was. They said it was really badly infected.’
‘It just didn’t stop bleeding after they stitched it up – I had to have my foot just over a bucket whilst it filled up with blood. It was turning a horrible colour.’
After arriving back in – where they’d been travelling for 10 months before – the severity of Angel’s injuries began to set in.
She underwent a first washout surgery on the day she arrived at the hospital while doctors assessed her options.
She said: ‘They said I was lucky that I got there when I did.
‘I had a wound washout surgery the first day I got there – I think I still had grit in the wound.’
Over the coming days, Angel had two further washout surgeries but her skin failed to heal and improve.
Doctors made the decision to perform skin flap surgery on her foot – taking a part of skin from her groin to replace the skin on her foot.
She said: ‘So they did the washout three times but as the skin kept dying they told me they’d need to take a chunk from my leg to replace it.
‘They prepared me and said I’d have to look at the open wound and I had to stand under the shower with my bone exposed and wash it out before surgery.
‘It was painful and a bit of a shock but they were injecting me with morphine throughout.
‘Then they marked out where they were going to take the skin from on my groin before putting me to sleep.
‘After I woke up I needed a boot to learn to walk again, which took a couple of months.
‘I’ve got what kind of looks like a big birthmark on top of my foot now – it’s just part of my story.’
Though she has since been on a motorbike, she says she’ll be staying well clear of the flip-flops.
She said: ‘I’ve been super cautious when riding them now – always trainers.
‘If I had trainers on I certainly don’t think it would have been as bad.’