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Boy stuns doctors by surviving flesh eating bacteria. CREDIT: idailymail.co.uk

Slade Dill is now on health news headlines after surviving a flesh-eating virus. His recovery has amazed his doctors. The eighth-grader was just playing tag when he cut his knee running. Wayne Dill, his father, thought that "it was no big deal" and simply cleaned up the cut. It was not long before Dixie Dill, the child's mother, noticed her son's swelling leg and led to bringing the young Dill to the hospital.

CT scans revealed that the boy contracted an infection, which has already spread to his abdomen and chest. The local Idaho hospital flew Slade to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City where he was finally diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis, a flesh-eating bacteria. Slade was subjescted to several surgeries. The Dill family should have been informed that Slade's would need to be amputated but doctors decided not to do it as they did not expect him to live longer.

Reports claimed his doctors made the right call of delaying the amputation as this could have detrimental effects to the young runner's career. Slade has later on shown full recovery and would soon get home in the near future. "Whatever they say, we are going to do it and be thankful," Dill's mother told the media.

Necrotizing fasciitis is a bacterial infection commonly carried by coughing or sneezing from someone who carries the group A Strep bacteria. This bacterium, which is also the cause of the relatively harmless strep throat, can be passed to an open wound through physical contact.

What mystified Slade's doctors was that the young boy did not exhibit a regular symptom of the disease like weakening of the immune system. According to reports, Slade looked like the perfect picture of health in school, running as an athlete for the cross-country team. Some doctors speculated that it might be the combination of Slade's healthy habits and his mother's quick response to the incident that saved the boy's life.