A father almost lost one of his legs and was left with an enormous 'shark bite' scar after he touched giant hogweed while gardening
Nathan Davies, from Ammanford, was hospitalised after blisters caused by the weed became severely infected
The 33-year-old estate agent sustained horrendous injuries and spent four weeks in hospital, undergoing five painful operations
Doctors told the father-of-one - whose son was just eight months old at the time - that he risked losing the muscle from his calf, as the infection had started to spread around his leg
Mr Davies said: 'It's the closest anybody could have come to losing their leg without actually losing it
'If the infection had reached my calf, the doctors would have been looking at taking a part of the muscle away
' Share this article Share Mr Davies' ordeal started when he was carrying out gardening work with his father in May - when temperatures soared to the high twenties across Wales
After coming into contact with common hogweed, Mr Davies - who was wearing shorts at the time - noticed blisters starting to appear on his leg
Less than a week later, he collapsed in agony and was immediately rushed to A&E in Llanelli
Mr Davies spent around four weeks in hospital, undergoing a number of operations to open his leg from the knee cap to the ankle bone
His injuries were also further complicated by subcutaneous emphysema - when gas or air becomes trapped under a cut or wound
Mr Davies said: 'All the operations were the same - opening up the wound and leaving it open to clean it
'One of the worst things was that they kept cancelling my operations - meaning I couldn't see my little boy
'I'd be put down for an operation - go nil by mouth for 24 hours, only for it to be cancelled at the final hour because they had run out of time
'I lost around a stone and a half in weight because of it.' Due to the severity of his injury, Mr Davies was left unable to walk unaided and had to rely heavily on the use of crutches for several months following the incident
But one of the most painful parts of the whole ordeal was having the stitches in his leg removed - which he said were as thick as 'tennis racket strings'
He said: 'It was absolutely horrendous having them taken out. I'd never seen stitches so thick in my life
'I didn't have any anaesthetic and the nurse had to use a tweezers to pull them out one by one - there were 24 of them
Another struggle for the father was not being able to care for his young son. He said: 'It was tough
Getting home after the hospital was the worst part - I couldn't do anything for myself
'I couldn't even shower myself, let alone help to shower the baby or do all the stuff I loved doing with him
' Mr Davies said he has 'completely recovered' from his ordeal now but has been left with a huge scar on his leg - which he said looked almost like a 'shark bite'
'If I stretch my leg to much, for example in the car, I can feel it pulling. He said: 'But, everything is getting back to normal now - I've learnt how to walk again and I can kick a football with my son
'My mind wanted to be able to do everything but my body just couldn't - all because of a plant!'