A DEADLY flesh eating bacteria left a Poole man critically ill and suffering with chronic pain so severe he considered suicide – before being cured last year with groundbreaking technology.

In 2011 Martin Smith, of Bearwood, was working in India when he was infected with Necrotising Fasciitis – which kills half its victims.

The systems engineers, however, did not realise there was a problem until he arrived in Hong Kong for his next assignment.

He woke to find one of his thighs had swollen to double its normal size and was suffering with a high fever – prompting medics to rush him to hospital where he was pumped with powerful antibiotics.

“All I remember is being bundled into the ambulance,” said Mr Smith, 53. “That next week is just a blur, a nightmare.”

The father-of-two recovered from the bug but during the treatment, lymph nodes and nerve clusters were destroyed in his right side which caused him on-going chronic pain.

He compared the agony to having shards of glass running through him from his hip to his groin – and spent the intervening years desperately searching for something to alleviate it.

“It became so bad that I considered taking my own life,” said Mr Smith.

“I wasn’t able to do anything, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t get about – it was hell.”

The pain was so severe that he was forced to stop working. He had strong steroid injections, making his weight increase dramatically before surgeons removed the nerves – but the agony persisted.

In July last year, however, Mr Smith was referred to Spire Southampton Hospital, where he had a Spinal Modulation Axium Neurostimulator System implanted.

This involved Mr Smith being woken up mid-surgery, something he described as “surreal”, as the surgeon asked for his responses as his spinal cord was stimulated.

The device installed, for which he has the controls, provides targeted stimulation to a neural structure that branch off the spinal cord, called the Dorsal Root Ganglion.

Since then he has seen a steady improvement in his pain, is losing the weight he gained due to the medication and this week is making his way to Korea - his first unaccompanied overseas assignment since he was struck down by the illness.

“It has given me my life back,” he said. “It’s just incredible what they’ve been able to do. The pain is down 50 per cent, I’m back at work and I can start thinking about the future again.”