Oklahoma Man, 31, Loses Limbs After Cut from Frisbee Golf Gets Infected: 'My Body Peeled Like a Snake' (Exclusive)

Last October, Dylan Riley was playing Frisbee golf with friends on a sunny afternoon in Oklahoma City. The disk flew into the road, and when he started to take it out, he tripped and cut his right knee.

“I’m a jerk,” says Riley, a 31-year-old who worked in construction and welding and hoped to join the military.

His mother, Trina White, an infectious disease nurse, examined the cut and thought it looked fine. There was no infection.

But almost two weeks later, Riley woke up feeling like he had the flu. He was sweaty and had a fever, plus body aches – and couldn’t stop vomiting. He took a hot bath thinking it might help. After he got out of the tub, he couldn’t move. He screamed for his roommate who called 911.

He remembers the paramedics talking to him and asking him questions – but then he lost consciousness.

“Everything went black,” says Riley.

At Baptist Integris Hospital, he was diagnosed with streptococcal toxic shock syndrome – a rare but very serious, life-threatening infection.

“He came to our hospital seriously ill, practically on the verge of death,” says his doctor, dr. Bob Schoaps, medical director of specialty critical care and acute mechanical circulatory support at Integris Health Incorporated.

Schoaps explains that strep, the same bacteria that causes strep throat, somehow got into Riley’s bloodstream.

Dylan Riley was on life support at Integris Baptist Medical Center.

Trina Bijela

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Riley’s organs began to shut down and his heart stopped beating. Doctors had to revive him twice.

“If Dylan had stayed in his house a few more hours, it’s very likely he wouldn’t have survived this,” Schoaps says. “When we see patients who have the same level of disease as him, we estimate their chances of survival to be 10% or less.”

When Riley’s mother White arrived at the hospital, she remembers the staff asking if she wanted her son put on life support.

“As a mother, it’s your worst nightmare,” she says. “I said: “Do what you have to do and save my son”.

Riley was placed on a veno-arterial ECMO machine to support her heart and lungs. The machine was keeping him alive but not circulating oxygenated blood to his extremities.

His limbs began to turn black – even the tips of his ears – as the tissue died without circulation. He was also on dialysis for his kidneys.

While Riley was unconscious, doctors told his family he might need amputations.

Riley says she doesn’t remember anything about the first five days in the hospital. It wasn’t until the ECMO machine was removed that he regained consciousness.

“The first thing I remember was looking over and seeing my mom and then my dad,” he says.

Seeing his separated parents together, Riley knew something was wrong. “They don’t want to share a room very often,” he says. “I thought, ‘Okay, what happened?’

Dylan Riley being examined after amputations.

Trina Bijela

His family and medical team explained to him that his body had gone into toxic shock and that he had almost died. From the moment he regained consciousness, his mother began to prepare him for the possibility of amputation.

She explained to Riley that while the machine had saved his life—and she was so grateful—the tissue loss in his limbs was very severe and he might have to lose a limb.

“I told him no matter what, we still love him and nothing will change.”

White feared she had made the wrong decision when she agreed to put him on life support, knowing it could still result in limb loss. “I was selfish. I wanted my son. I didn’t care what he looked like. I didn’t care what parts we lost,” she says. “I was worried that he would resent me. I was worried that he would be upset that he was living a life that was so different from what he knew.”

But a few weeks later, her fears disappeared. “Riley told me, ‘Mom, it doesn’t matter. The main thing is that I’m still here,'” she recalls.

Dylan Riley goes about his rehab routine on his braces.

Trina Bijela

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Meanwhile, he dealt with many strange side effects. “My whole body peeled off, every bit of it, like a snake would,” he says. His taste buds even peeled off his tongue — he didn’t want to eat because the food was no longer tasty.

It took surgeons several months to determine how many of his limbs they could save.

But Dylan’s humor has always been one of his defining characteristics. So when the doctors said they had to amputate his legs, he joked instead of being sad.

“I always try to see the positive in things,” he says. His friends and family cried, but he refused. “When I see them crying, I think: ‘Don’t, because you’ll make me cry.’ And my first instinct is always to make them laugh, so I sat there and made jokes about amputations.”

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His legs were amputated a week before Christmas 2023. He asked his mother to take a picture of his legs in bandages. “You could see they were cut off,” he says. He posted a picture of his own amputation next to the Gingerbread Man from Shrek, whose legs were cut off. “I’ve always had a really dark sense of humor,” he says.

In January, parts of his hands were amputated.

He could hold a palm on his right hand. On the left hand, the surgeons managed to save part of the thumb, part of the index and middle finger. And luckily, he says, parts of his hand have rejuvenated. “I can still pick up a pen and I can still write,” he says. “But I can’t hold power tools like I used to.”

On Friday, May 17, 2024, he received prosthetic legs thanks to the organization Limbs for Life. By Monday, he started rehab, learning to handle stairs and curbs. “I was sweating,” he says. “I wanted to come back early. I didn’t want to be one of those, ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ I wanted to prove people wrong.”

Dylan Riley and Randy Titony of Limbs for Life.

Trina Bijela

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A year later, Riley is determined to get his life back together. He’s getting back into some of his favorite hobbies, like league bowling. “It’s not pretty,” he says, laughing. He also returned to playing disc golf with his friends.

Schoaps says Riley’s “persistent optimism” is one of the main reasons he’s doing so well. Riley visits other amputees in the hospital before they lose their limbs to give them hope.

“I can at least help them understand that this is not the end – this is just the beginning of their new story,” he says. “You can go one of two ways: you can go forward and stand out, or you can sit there and sit back and take steps back.”

He also plans to give motivational speeches to local schoolchildren to teach them the importance of dealing with adversity and never giving up, no matter the challenge.

“I am grateful for life,” he says. “Things could be so different. My family was able to plan the funeral.”

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Source: HIS Education