When an Australian teenager got her thumb replaced by a toe

A Victorian teenager- Britney Thomas- was all set to embark on her dream of playing professional cricket at the age of 17. But cruelty was served on a platter to her as a blunder committed during a surgery led to her thumb being replaced by her toe. It started when she injured her thumb while playing cricket in Hong Kong. Later, she came to know that she had suffered a rather nasty fracture.

In order to remedy, she was sent to Latrobe Regional Hospital to undergo an operation by a local orthopedic surgeon. Before the critical operation, a tourniquet was applied to restrict the blood flow during the surgery. Britney was told that it would be taken off once the operation was over. Following the operation, the thumb was set in plaster and she was sent home.

Only five days later, she went through some unbearable pain. She told it was “the worst pain I think I have ever been through.” Britney’s story was aired as a part of Four Corners investigation into Australia’s concerning standard of health care.

What’s going to happen to me?- Britney

She went back to her local GP to get the plaster removed to see what was causing the pain. On the cast being removed, it was learned that the tourniquet had never been taken off. “They pulled the plaster off and it was very dark and looked dead. The skin was all yucky. I was mortified, it was horrible,” Leanne Keating, Britney’s mother, said.

The teen’s thumb was restricted off blood for such a long time that it had to be removed. “They took me into the emergency and they were like ‘You’re probably going to lose your thumb’. I was in so much disbelief and I was like ‘What’s going to happen to me? What’s going to happen to my cricket?’” an absolutely distraught Britney said.

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