A gym-goer was forced to have his forearm amputated after a botched bicep curl caused him to develop a deadly flesh-eating bug.
Gabriel McKenna-Lieschke was pumping iron when a 50kg weight caused his bicep to tear clean off his elbow and leaving him screaming in pain.
After surgery to reattach the muscle, the 29-year-old claims his arm swelling up to three times the thickness and turned bright red - before he was rushed back into hospital.
The civil engineering student was left fighting for his life and placed in an induced coma, as his family were told to prepare for the worst.
Heavily-sedated Gabriel then woke up to be told he had lost his lower left arm due to the deadly flesh-eating bug necrotising fasciitis.
More than 18 months on from his freak accident, Gabriel is now determined to grow his fitness and now has his sights set on the Paris Paralympics in 2024.
On his GoFundMe page, he has raised $3,180 AUD (£1,800) so far, which will help fund his prosthetics, rehabilitation and cycling equipment.
Gabriel, from Adelaide, Australia, said: "I was training flat out, I was bicep-curling 50 kilos.
"I tore my right bicep clean off the elbow doing a bicep curl in the gym. I basically jumped in the car, drove about 50 metres screaming in pain. I called a friend to come pick me up.
"We called the hospital and they told me having a bicep attached was an elective surgery. Two days later, I got [managed to get] a surgeon.
"I don't have any recollection of this point, but I do know this is what happened. I had the surgery to reattach it and I wasn't given any antibiotics, not intravenously or orally.”
Gabriel said there had been questions about where the necrotising fasciitis came from.
He said he felt “extremely grateful” to have another chance at life, have the support of his family and friends and that he was from a country that allowed him to pursue a dream like competing in the Paralympics.
Gabriel was operated on in hospital while he was in a coma, as surgeons battled to save his life. When he woke up heavily sedated a member of medical staff told him they had to 'remove' some sections of his arm.
He claims he didn't realise his arm had been amputated for three days.
Gabriel said: "I wasn't making any sense, I was put into an induced coma for 10 days.
"The main infection started attacking my lower arm before where my bicep was. The first amputation was below the elbow. I've partially avoided some of those details.
"They then went above the elbow and had to debride [remove] the dead skin on my chest and my arm.
"I was asleep for the whole thing. I had no idea what was going on and when I woke up, I didn't even realised I'd lost my arm for three days. When I looked in the mirror, I was like 'oh s**t'.
"Unfortunately, I was on so many drugs it was like it hit me in the face. But at the same time, I wasn't able to comprehend it properly because I was in such a haze.
"I came out of the coma on November 23, 2020, and then I had a skin graft on New Year's Eve 2020."
After undergoing skin graft surgery to try and reconstruct parts of his upper body, Gabriel struggled to maintain his balance and worked hard in rehabilitation to develop more movement in his remaining limb.
Instead of finding himself in a 'hole of depression', Gabriel was dedicated to maintaining a positive mindset and vowed to see the journey as the 'ultimate challenge'.
Gabriel said: "After that, my residual limb didn't have any range of motion whatsoever. I was super off balance. I worked really hard in rehab to gain that range of motion back. Breaking through all that scar tissue was a really painful process but I worked really hard at it.
"They let me out on day release about a month or two before they intended to because I was a bit of a nuisance.
"I wasn't taking any painkillers and I was refusing everything because I just wanted to go home. I've had a fairly long history of bad mental health. I got on top of it a year prior to losing my arm.
"I was really in a good spot and I was really happy, I knew how hard it was to get back from nothing.
"I'm glad I was in a position where I could tackle it head on because for me it was either 'it's time to get on with it, get on with your life or basically kill yourself'.
"My first thought was it was going to send me back into a hole of depression, but I thought 'this is the ultimate challenge'. I relished it as a challenge of self-improvement.
"To see that amazing progress from hard work is incredibly motivating."
Now Gabriel is more determined than ever to get to peak fitness and enter the Paris Paralympics in two years' time - hoping to race in the cycling team with the help of specialist prosthetics.
"When I woke up, neither bodybuilding and boxing seemed like they were my sports anymore with one arm, so I decided to reframe my life so I had a passion again,” he said. “That's really important.
"I don't know what made me think of it but I said 'I want to try track cycling'. I'd never been a cyclist before in my life.
"It was amazing for me to realise there was a life ahead of me. It was a bit hard to get into and I had a few makeshift attachments so I could square myself up on the back with no real control.
"I started racing a bit and more recently I went to track nationals in Brisbane in March. Now I have got a very good team around me who are helping me train about 20 hours a week.
"I'm having therapy for training-related things. I have to have ongoing physio because I'm training so much. I have occupational therapists, prosthetics appointments.
"I'm still trying to develop prosthetics for my bike - I haven't ridden it outside for four months because I don't have an arm to ride it with.
"I'm doing everything on my trainer in my living room.
"I'm trying to raise this money for the equipment. I have some funding to start it off but it's not enough to get the high level of prosthetics I need and there's bikes, equipment and training alone.
"It's a lot of money, very close to $1,000 (£570) a month just on my training, massages and physio."
You can donate to Gabriel's page here .
