Rotherham mum and model lost half her belly to sepsis and flesh-eating bug after horror c-section

Amy Hiner, aged 40, was given just hours to live after she suffered sepsis and necrotising fasciitis following a C-section to deliver her second child Evie.

She developed a burning fever and agonising pain in her tummy five days after birth and doctors diagnosed a Strep A infection caused by 'retained products' in her womb.

A specialist then recognised apparent 'bruises' on Amy's lower tummy as patches of dead tissue. The Strep A infection had developed into sepsis, and then the potentially-fatal flesh-eating bug necrotising fasciitis, she said.

Amy - who said it felt like “piranhas in my tummy” - was rushed to theatre to have the 'retained products' removed and the deadly infected flesh cut away. But mum-of-two Amy's condition continued to worsen and the black patches were still on her tummy.

Given just hours to live, she went back under the knife, with surgeons cutting inches deep from her belly button to her bikini line in a desperate bid to save her life. Amy suffered night tremors, and nightmares, and couldn't think of anything other than what had happened to her.

She spent months hiding away crying and having panic attacks before being diagnosed with PTSD and post-sepsis syndrome and began three years of therapy. Amy's wound took nearly a year to heal, and she didn't qualify for funding for reconstructive plastic surgery.

But Amy bounced back and now, having made a full recovery, decided to follow her dream of being an ice cream lady. She also took the brave step of doing modelling as a side-hustle and said she's happier than ever.

Amy won a modelling shoot in a competition on Facebook in December.

The photographer said she was a natural and she started getting offers of work when she posted the pictures on Instagram, she said. Since then she's filmed a couple of music videos in Manchester and a fashion shoot in London.

Amy, from Rotherham, said: “I've been left horribly disfigured, with my belly slanting and scarred. It needs a full tummy tuck. "And because of severed nerves, I feel like I'm being electrocuted if I lie on my right side. But my mental health was the hardest part. I hated myself. I couldn't look in the mirror or shower without crying.

“But I survived against all the odds and I've turned my life around. Now I'm happy and earning more for myself than I ever did working for someone else. My ice cream business is really hard graft, but I get such a buzz from the smiles on peoples' faces. You just have to have the confidence to be what you want to be.

“We all want to see more normal shapes and sizes in modelling. Girls need to know you don't need to be anything - but yourself. We all have good and bad angles. It's about getting the right shots. I found happiness by accepting that I'm good enough as I am.”

Amy bought her ice cream van in July 2021 with a settlement she won from the hospital. She's already planning to buy a second van this summer, and a warm-food trailer, and plans to fund the up-to-ten-grand tummy tuck through her business.

Amy added: “I realised you can lose everything in a heartbeat, and that gave me the push to follow my dreams. Maybe this is my happy ending. I wanted to own an ice cream van when I was little, but it felt like too much of a risk, so after everything I'd been through I thought I'd just go for it. I just love it! And it's unusual because there aren't many female ice-cream venders.

“Before I wouldn't have even dreamed of being a model, and you'd never have got photos of me in lingerie, sometimes I'm on my way to a photo shoot and I still can't believe it's me. You can see that my tummy has marks on it. I'm not perfect and I don't believe anyone needs to be. I like a challenge and I'm an adaptable outgoing person. I think that's helped me get through this.”

Amy's life and death battle began following Evie's birth in May 2016. Mum to son Charlie, 11, and Evie, now six, Amy added: “The pain was so excruciating, like someone pouring battery acid in an open wound, even morphine didn't touch it.

“I didn't think I could go on. My whole life flashed before me. I just looked at my baby and knew she might never remember me. A few times in theatre they nearly lost me. At one point I had an out-of-body experience.”

Surgeons first cut away the tissues on the lower right quarter of her belly then the left side as they raced against the spread of the deadly bug. In another op they cut deeper, inches down to the layer above her organs she said.

Amy was left with a gaping hole in her tummy, which was later packed with bandages, and a little pump put in to take out fluid and dead tissue. Amy said she had no memories, even of having given birth, when she woke in recovery.

She said: “It just keeps spreading and you're literally being eaten alive. It was extremely frightening. I could feel my body shutting down, and it felt like I had piranhas in my tummy. It was awful and I couldn't even hold my baby. I was so broken. It took all my energy just to breathe. I had to learn to walk again. When I tried to stand it was like my legs were having to support a lorry. I didn't think I'd be able to do anything ever again. I cried and cried. I was heartbroken.”

“It's very rare to survive the deadly bug, and more rare to still have all my limbs, so in some ways I'm very lucky,” she added.