Alachua County firefighter Brandon Boothby is spreading awareness to his condition through TikTok posts
A Florida firefighter who lost his nose to a flesh-eating fungal infection is back at work after taking a year off to recover from several surgeries he’d undergone.
Alachua County firefighter Brandon Boothby was diagnosed in 2022 with an autoimmune condition called aplastic anemia . It’s a serious blood condition that occurs when one’s bone marrow fails to produce enough new blood cells, hampering the body’s natural ability to stave off infection.
The condition’s so rare, that it only affects two out of every one million people in the United States — and now, Boothby is sharing his story on TikTok , to make others aware of aplastic anemia.
It started with an itch, followed by flu-like symptoms that “progressively got worse.” Eventually, the young dad was so weak, he was losing consciousness.
Doctors brainstormed for weeks on ways to save the nose. But they eventually agreed that Boothby, who now wears a prosthetic, had to have his nose removed — otherwise, the infection he couldn’t fight would’ve “reached my eyes within a few weeks and my brain within a month,” he told U.K. tabloid The Sun .