WARNING: your bagpipes may kill you. Leading piping organisations have issued a hygiene alert after a piper was hospitalised for four weeks having contracted a potentially fatal lung infection
from his bagpipes.
--
But 77-year-old John Shones love of Scotlands national instrument was sorely tested after he inhaled fungal spores which had colonised his bagpipes.
---
Shone, a former committee member of the Piobaireachd Society, was preparing to play at a special event in September when he fell ill during a fishing trip to Scotland. He was forced to return to his Wiltshire home.
His GP prescribed antibiotics but they did not work and he was admitted to hospital. Two days later, he was sent home, but a week later his health deteriorated rapidly and he was quickly readmitted to hospital.
As he lay in a critical condition, doctors were mystified by the cause of his illness and struggled in vain for more than a week to cure him using a variety of antibiotics.
---
It was only after a consultant questioned him about his hobbies that a possible cause was found.
Shones son was then asked to bring his fathers bagpipes into the hospital for tests. Pathologists there discovered a heavy growth of fungal cultures lurking inside, enabling doctors to prescribe an effective treatment.
---
TriciaManager Websleuths.com