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

"I'm grateful for life," says Dylan Riley of his strep infection. "Things could be so different — my family could have been planning a funeral"

Last October, Dylan Riley was playing frisbee golf with friends on a sunny afternoon in Oklahoma City. The disc went into the road, and when he went to retrieve it, he tripped and cut his right knee.

“I’m a klutz,” says Riley, a 31-year-old who worked in construction and welding and hoped to enlist in the Army.

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

But nearly two weeks later, Riley woke up feeling like he had the flu. He was sweaty and had a fever, plus body aches — and he couldn’t stop throwing up. He took a hot bath thinking it might make him feel better. After he got out of the tub, he couldn’t move. He screamed for his roommate who called an ambulance.

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

“Everything went black,” Riley says.

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

“He came into our hospital severely sick, on death's doorstep practically,” says his physician, Dr. Bob Schoaps, Medical Director for Specialty Critical Care and Acute Mechanical Circulatory Support at Integris Health Incorporated.

Schoaps explains that streptococcus, the same bacteria that causes strep throat, had somehow gotten into Riley's bloodstream.

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Riley’s organs began shutting down and his heart stopped beating. Twice, doctors had to revive him.

“If Dylan would've hung out at his house for another couple of hours, it's very likely he would not have survived this," Schoaps says. "When we see patients that have the level of illness that he did, we estimate their chance of survival to be 10% or less."

When Riley’s mother White arrived at the hospital, she remembers staff asking if she wanted her son put her son 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 both heart and lung function. The machine kept him alive but didn’t circulate oxygenated blood to his extremities.

His limbs started turning black — even the tips of his ears — because the tissue was dying without irculation. He was also on dialysis for his kidneys.

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

Riley says he doesn't remember anything about the first five days in the hospital. Only when the ECMO machine was removed did he regain consciousness.

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

Seeing his divorced parents together, Riley knew something was very wrong. "They don't want to share a room very often," he says. "I was like, 'Okay, what happened?"

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

She explained to Riley that while the machine saved his life — and she was so thankful — the tissue loss in his limbs was very serious and he may have to lose a limb.

"I told him no matter what, we still loved him and nothing was going to change anything."

White feared that she had made the wrong decision in agreeing to put him on the life-support machine, 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 worried he would hold that against me. I worried that he would be upset that he's living a life so different than what he knew."

But a few weeks later her fears were assuaged. "Riley told me, 'Mom, it doesn't matter. The main thing is I'm still here,'" she recalls.

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In the meantime, he was dealing with many strange side effects. "My entire body peeled, every single bit, like a snake would," he says. His taste buds had even peeled off his tongue — he didn't want to eat because food no longer tasted good.

It took surgeons took a few months to determine how much of his limbs they could save.

But Dylan's humor had always been one of his key traits. So when doctors said his legs had to be amputated, he made jokes instead of being sad.

"I always try to see the positive in things," he says. His friends and family were crying, but he refused. "Seeing them cry, I am like, 'Don't, cause you're going to make me cry.' And so my first instinct is always make them laugh, so I was sitting there making jokes about the amputations."

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His legs were amputated the week before Christmas 2023. He asked his mother to snap a picture of his bandaged legs. "You could see they were cut off," he says. He posted the picture of his own amputation next to the Gingerbread man from Shrek, who got his legs cut off. "I always had a really dark sense of humor," he says.

In January, parts of his hands were amputated.

On his right hand ,he was able to keep his palm. On his left hand, surgeons were able to save part of his thumb, and some of his index finger and middle finger. And thankfully, he says, portions of his hand did rejuvenate. “I can still grab a pencil and I can still write,” he says. "But I can't hold power tools like I used to."

On Friday, May 17, 2024, he was given prosthetic legs thanks to Limbs for Life. By Monday he started rehab, learning to tackle steps and curbs. "I was sweating," he says. "I wanted to get back sooner. I didn't want to be one of those, 'Oh, feel bad for me.' I wanted to prove people wrong."

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A year later, Riley is determined to get his life back. He's returning to some of his favorite hobbies, like league bowling. "It’s not pretty," he says, laughing. He’s also back to playing disc golf with his friends.

Schoaps says Riley’s “persistent optimism” is one of the main reasons he is 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 realize that this isn’t the end of it — this is just the beginning of their new story,” he says. “You can go one of two directions: You can move forward and excel, or you can sit there and linger and take steps back.”

He’s also planning to give motivational speeches to local schoolchildren to teach them the importance of handling adversity and never giving up, no matter the challenge.

"I'm grateful for life," he says. “Things could be so different. My family could have been planning a funeral.”