A healthy man says he was given 12 hours to live after contracting hepatitis B through an infected fingernail.
David Surtees was working a typical day delivering pallets of fruit and vegetables to schools in York when he scraped his hand on a nail.
He didn’t think anything of it at first, but in the following weeks he found himself “exhausted” and started being late for work every day after accidentally oversleeping.
“I ended up quitting because I was too tired and couldn’t do it anymore,” Mr Surtees said.
Within four to five weeks of scraping his hand, he found himself unable to work at all and the 51-year-old became exhausted even while at home.
He spent another month or so sleeping between 15 and 16 hours a day, but because he lived alone, no one was there to know that his condition was deteriorating.
Mr Surtees said a friend of his saved his life when he knocked on his door one day and saw that his skin had turned yellow.
“You look terrible,” the friend told him and took him to the GP.
“As soon as the receptionist saw me, she called the doctor straight away,” he said. “Then a doctor looked at me and told me to go to the hospital right away.”
Mr. Surtees with his daughter when she was a small child
(David Surtees)
By the time he arrived at Huddersfield Hospital, he was so dehydrated that he was put on a drip and had blood tests to check his virus count.
“Then a hepatitis specialist came to see me and said, ‘I’ve never seen a person alive with this viral count.’
“He actually asked me, ‘How are you even here right now?’
He was eventually diagnosed with hepatitis B, a liver infection that is spread through blood, semen and vaginal fluids. The infection is usually transmitted through sharp objects contaminated with blood.
Some of the most common symptoms are fatigue, high fever, and yellowing of the whites of the eyes and skin.
In most cases, it can clear up after a few months. However, if left untreated, it can cause serious liver damage and chronic kidney disease. Mr Surtees said he was told his kidneys were failing and there was not enough time for a transplant.
“He told me I had 12 hours to live and to call my family to come with me,” he recalled.
Mr Surtees contacted his daughter Micah, who was 10 at the time, so he could spend his final hours with her.
But to his and the specialist’s surprise, the Yorkshireman fought off the infection and with each passing day his condition began to improve. He ended up spending about four months in the hospital on medication.
Although he is grateful to be alive two years after the initial infection, Mr Surtees said his life has been turned upside down.
“I only have 10 percent liver function,” he explained. “I have chronic fatigue. I can’t walk more than 200 yards.
Mr Surtees is unable to work and is on permanent sick pay. He has to take medicine every day to treat the infection.
“If I don’t take my pill every day, I’ll be dead within seven days,” he said. “Whatever. When you’re sick, you can’t help but be sick. I used to be very physically active. I used to go camping in the woods, but now I can barely walk to the shops because of chronic fatigue. It means I can’t even work to make some coins.
“It’s a struggle. It is also a story of isolation. If I had someone living with me, they would have noticed sooner that my skin and eyeballs were yellow and something was wrong.”
Paul Desmond, Head of Care at Hepatitis B Trust UKa UK-registered national charity explained: “Hepatitis B virus is extremely easily contracted from any sharp object contaminated with hepatitis B blood. The virus can live on such objects for 3 weeks and any puncture of the skin caused from such an object is likely to lead to infection.
“We regularly get calls from patients with infections from bloody equipment such as nails, shared tools, reused tattoo needles, shared razors, even recently a tin of shared clothing needles in a textile factory.
“People should be aware that blood is the most infectious body fluid and use good blood hygiene precautions, such as latex gloves and bleaching blood spills, to be safe.”
What is hepatitis B and its warning signs?
Hepatitis B is a liver infection that is spread through blood, semen and vaginal fluids, according to the NHS.
Hepatitis B symptoms you should not ignore:
The infection usually lasts one to three months, and most people have no or mild symptoms. If the infection persists for more than six months, it is called chronic hepatitis B.