Warning: Graphic images
A mum has put out an urgent warning after almost losing her leg following a night on the booze.
Julia Anderson, from Ontario, Canada, returned home from a girls night out a little worse for wear back in 2020, and it changed her life.
As many of us have probably experienced, having drunk 'a lot' of vodka that night, the 36-year-old passed out when she got home, and that's when things took a turn for the worse.
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Checking she was ok, mum Sandra Anderson came in to see Julia and became concerned about how she was laying.
Julia was curled up on top of her legs while facing downwards, and had to be rolled onto her side.
A few hours later, Julia woke up and still couldn't move her legs, which had become incredibly swollen, properly.
Worried she may have broken something, Julia screamed for her mum and they called an ambulance.
After being checked over by doctors, Julia was diagnosed with a condition called compartment syndrome, which according to the NHS, is caused by bleeding or swelling within an enclosed bundle of muscles.
In order to save her leg, she had to undergo dialysis, a blood transfusion and a skin graft operation.
And three years on, Julia still struggles to walk properly.
"When I got to the hospital my whole body was very swollen," she recalled. "I'm tiny, I'm only 100lbs, to them I just looked like a 140lb girl.
"I told them 'guys I don't look like this, something is wrong'."
She went on: "I was immediately rushed into surgery because my muscle was deteriorating and releasing toxins into my bloodstream causing my body to swell up and my kidneys to shut down.
"After the first surgery I was in intensive care for two weeks strapped to a device to drain the fluid as I was still huge.
"I was in pain constantly. Imagine your leg is falling asleep but that tingling feeling is times a thousand, like a sharp shooting electric shock up my leg."
After five weeks in hospital, Julia returned home, where she was bedridden for a further three.
And she is still dealing with the aftermath of the trauma to this day.
"It's been years but it still feels like my foot is mildly asleep all the time, I'm used to it," Julia said.
"I can't walk properly on that foot, I walk on my left foot like I'm wearing a high heel - almost like a Barbie foot.
"My toes are starting to curl under, I don't know if I'll need further surgery or if there's anything they can do at this point."
She is now urging people to be careful if they're out drinking with their mates, as the consequences can be devastating.
Julia warned: "I would say to people that if you do have too much to drink, try and sober up before going to bed.
"Have some food and some water, don't just pass out because you won't wake up if the circulation gets cut off."
Topics: Health
Dominic Smithers