He Went in for the Flu. He Lost His Feet and Fingers

"One minute you've got the flu and the next minute you're septic." That's the message from a Texas man who lost both of his feet and nearly all of his fingers after coming down last month with the illness, per WFAA. As flu season continues to wreak havoc across the US, Brian Herndon has been recuperating and drifting in and out of consciousness for weeks at Dallas' Baylor University Medical Center, where he was airlifted on Jan. 6 after being diagnosed with the flu just 48 hours earlier. The 51-year-old father of two was also hit with pneumonia, and soon after he was admitted to a Fort Worth hospital on Jan. 5 he went into septic shock. Doctors were forced to amputate both of his legs below the knee and nine of his fingers after the septic shock caused blood clots to form.

Herndon's wife, Jaye, tells NBC 5 that he hadn't had a flu shot this year, and that the illness progressed so rapidly he'd never even had a chance to take the Tamiflu he was given when he was initially diagnosed. "He had a 104.7 temperature right away," she tells WFAA. "And then he had trouble breathing. We didn't wait, we went to the ER. It was that quick." A GoFundMe campaign that has raised more than $23,000 so far will use the money to pay for new prosthetic legs and additional medical care for Herndon, including special work on his hands. His family hopes he'll be out of Baylor's ICU by the end of this week. "Every dollar will help show love to an amazing man!," the GoFundMe page notes. (More flu stories.)