Necrotizing Soft Tissue Infection

Fire in the Walls

Imagine a house where the walls are made of thin plastic wrap (that's the fascia). A tiny hole gets poked in the exterior (skin break), and termites (bacteria) pour in and start eating the plastic wrap and insulation (tissue destruction by exotoxins). Because the plastic wrap is one continuous sheet running through the whole house, the termites can slide along it like a highway, eating as they go, much faster than they could chew through solid wood (muscle). The house's fire alarm (immune system) goes off and tries to seal off the problem with concrete walls (blood clots), but this also cuts off the water pipes (blood vessels) that cool the house, so the sealed-off areas catch fire anyway (ischemic tissue death (necrosis)). Meanwhile, poisonous fumes (bacterial toxins in the bloodstream) leak out into every room, making everyone sick and confused even though the main fire is still hidden in the walls (septic shock before skin signs appear). By the time you see black char on the outside walls (skin tissue death), the damage inside is already so massive that the only way to save the house is to tear out all the burned parts (surgical debridement), and even then it might be too late.