Legendary Russian guitarist dies from flesh eating infection

Andrey Suchilin has long been regarded as one of Russia’s best guitarists and the progenitor of rock and roll in his country. It's a reputation that’s made his face and name famous to one degree or another in most of Eastern Europe. Like many celebrities, Suchilin’s notoriety makes it hard for him to find a quiet spot to wind downin while at home. To have anything resembling a vacation, he’d have to leave the east for a more exotic locale, like Pittsburgh or Gran Canaria, an Island off the coast of Northwest Africa. Last May, he opted for the latter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYowApDqO3M After getting himself some sun, Suchilin hopped on a flight from Gran Canaria that’d see him through to Amsterdam where he’d change planes and make for home. There was just one problem: Suchilin had an odor coming off him that could drop a rhino a 50 yards. Other passengers sitting near him on his flight complained. As his bouquet began to make its way throughout the airplane cabin’s recirculated air, some passengers passed out. Others puked. The commotion being caused by the stench issuing from the guitarist was such that the plane’s cabin crew decided that for everyone’s comfort, it would be best to confine Suchilin in one of the plane’s bathrooms. But, again, recirculated air, so no dice. Eventually, the plane’s captain made the decision request emergency landing privileges in Portugal: It was the only way to get the passengers the hell away from Suchilin. Landing early also afforded Suchilin the opportunity to find out what the hell was going on with his body. As it turns out, an infection that he’d contracted while on vacation had worsened, significantly, on Suchilin’s flight home. It’s here that things took a turn for the horrific. From RT.com:

One of the passengers, who later spoke to the Daily Mirror, said the smell coming from the unfortunate passenger was “like he hadn't washed himself for several weeks.” The passenger identified himself on Facebook as Russian art-rock guitarist, Andrey Suchilin, who had been vacationing on Gran Canaria. “The tragic and comic component of this whole situation is that I caught a disease, which (let’s not say how and why) makes a person quite stinky. As a result, a group of passengers may demand the captain for you to be removed from the plane,” Suchilin wrote. The embarrassment soon turned to horror, however. What the doctor on Gran Canaria diagnosed as “a simple beach infection,” curable by antibiotics, turned out to be tissue necrosis.

That’s right: the infection was causing the flesh to die while he was still walking around breathing. Thanks to a misdiagnosis, the rot rapidly progressed through his body, causing the smell encountered on the airplane and doing serious physical harm to Suchilin. A day after being removed from the plane, Suchilin fell into a coma. Over the past month, doctors fought to save the musicians life. On June 25th, Suchilin’s heart, lungs and kidneys all shut down, killing him at the age of 59 years old. So yeah, maybe take care of those scrapes, cuts or itches in special places you get while traversing tropical locales. Still not feeling better? GET BACK TO THE DOCTOR. Your body might not be up to the task of fighting off what follows. Image via Wikipedia Commons

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