Life and Limb

Airing Nov. 10, 9 p.m. on TLC

Life and Limb is the story of Delta resident Lana Idestrup, a pregnant 42-year-old who arrived at Delta Hospital in December 2007 with a severe pain in her right ankle that was later diagnosed as Strep A necrotizing fasciitis, commonly known as the flesh-eating virus.

Over the course of the day at Delta Hospital, Idestrup’s condition had worsened as the team worked to narrow down a diagnosis. Idestrup was later transported to BC Women’s Hospital and then on to St. Paul’s Hospital, where doctors conducted an emergency C-section to deliver her baby as well as several operations to remove the necrotic tissue. (The transfer to Women’s Hospital was written out of the script in order to shorten the story.)

Idestrup and her husband Jon were both interviewed for the “Untold Stories” episode, and a TV crew also dropped by their home to shoot the family as they are today. Their baby Holly, now a healthy two-year-old, is the youngest of the couple’s three children.

“Sometimes it’s just like it was yesterday,” said Idestrup, who is able to walk thanks to a seven-hour surgery that repaired the muscle in her leg. “You go from one day being a regular family, and the next day you’re fighting for your life. Everything changes, but you can out-live something like this.”

Idestrup still bears the scars from her ordeal and will always have some residual issues with her leg, but feels fortunate that she and Holly are alive and well.

“It’s because of the medical teams that took care of me that I’m here,” she said. “It’s a story people need to know. You hear about the bad and the negative. I’m living proof of all the great things they do.”

The team caring for Idestrup at Delta Hospital included RN Kathy Sinclair, who plays herself in the TV reenactment and served as a technical consultant on set and during the script-writing.

“I’ve never acted in my life, and that was a very scary thing,” Sinclair said. “But it was a great learning experience, and actually a lot of fun.”

Sinclair said that in 22 years of nursing, no case has affected her as much as Idestrup’s.

“It was life-altering. Usually when you work in emerg you never know what happens after people leave, but Lana and Jon and the baby came back a year later to visit us,” she said.

“For me, this story really shows what a community hospital can do. This was a very difficult case, and we were able to handle it.”