A man who nearly died from a rare flesh-eating bug has issued a warning to the public in a bid to raise awareness of the horrible incident.

Robbie Walsh, the victim, said that he had a 1 in 4 chance of surviving the bug.

He contracted the bug from a small cut on his toe.

The 36-year-old man says that the doctors said that he might lose his leg to the rare disease in the best-case scenario.

He contracted a rare disease called Necrotizing Fasciitis.

However, doctors at the Mercy Hospital worked tirelessly and managed to save his limb.

He said that he had a tiny cut on his toe, which he thought nothing serious.

Things went south after he got the virus.

He shared his story and issued a warning to the public while chatting to Neil Prendeville on Cork’s Red FM.

During the interview, he said:

I came home from my holidays on the Friday and didn’t’ notice the cut at all. By Saturday the pain was unbearable and I went in to the South Doc and they were under the impression that it was gout. They gave me steroids and an injection for the pain so I came home and it started getting progressively worse. I was up all night with the pain and then on Sunday morning I couldn’t breathe and I got sick, my foot was swollen massively as well. I went to the hospital and they took bloods, my foot had gone black at this stage and they had to cut it open to relieve the pressure. Then they started to put me under sedation and I don’t really know what happened after that but they took some samples which took 48 hours and while they were doing that they were giving me antibiotics.

48 after the cut, Robbie was told that he had contracted the rare disease.

He added:

I was told I had a 25% chance of pulling through. I was lying on the bed and the doctor came in and said ‘we have to go right now’ and I thought I was getting discharged. He said ‘no we have to go for emergency surgery right now, this is life-threatening’. He told me my leg was gone from the hip down and that they were now trying to save my life not my limb.  My wife Tracey had gone home at this point but I met her on the way to surgery and I was told I didn’t even have time to see my daughters. She was told by my doctors to get my affairs in order and we thought that was it.

Robbie had to go through 7 surgeries before doctors confirmed that the virus had gone away.