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, "Im 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." 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. 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.
Society and culture
Notable cases
1994 Lucien Bouchard, former 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 Ken Kendrick, 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.