Woman 'eaten to death' by mould after undergoing heart operation

'The infection had gotten so deep. It had eaten down through the skin, the muscle and started to get to the bone'

Shelby Slagle and her husband Ryan in April 2015 (Facebook)

A woman who received a life-saving heart operation was reportedly "eaten to death" by mould in her hospital bed.

Shelby Slagle underwent successful surgery in May 2015, but less than two months later she was dead after a fungal infection ravaged her body, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

The 27-year-old was born with a hole in her heart and had been waiting all her life for a donor. After receiving the organ at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Ohio, all initially seemed well.

“She kept saying, ‘I'm walking out of this hospital on July 4,'” Laurie Amick, Mrs Slagle’s mother, said. “She was definitely on the road to recovery.”

But two weeks after the surgery, doctors noticed a bed sore on her buttocks that had become infected.

She began to undergo daily operations to remove the infected tissue, but the mould was spreading too quickly.

A week before she died, unable to talk, Mrs Shelby sent a text to her mother, saying: “Mum, I think I’m dying."

Mrs Amick recounted the horror of the weeks leading up to her daughter’s death.

“Eventually, she had to go to surgery every day. They would take out more tissue and removed most of her buttocks,” she said.

“The infection had gotten so deep. It had eaten down through the skin, the muscle and started to get to the bone.”

The disease that was eating its way through Mrs Slagle’s body was identified as rhizopus, a fungal infection that often results in death.

“It was the most horrific thing I have ever seen in my life,” Craig Amick, Mrs Slagle's father, said. “To sit there and watch your child be eaten to death".

Her husband received $1.35 million in August as compensation after settling a lawsuit with the hospital.

“We extend our sympathy to the family of Mrs Slagle and appreciate their graciousness,” UPMC spokeswoman Allison Hydzik said in a statement last month.