Woman gets liver transplant after $60 nose piercing goes horribly wrong - New York Post

Queens woman Dana Smith, 37, nearly died after contracting an infection from a nose piercing.

Her liver began to fail, and she was placed in a medically induced coma shortly after arriving at Long Island Jewish and then North Shore University Hospital

There, doctors diagnosed Smith with very rare liver failure

“Fulminant liver failure is when you’re perfectly healthy, you acquire a virus, and within two months you fall into a coma,” said Dr

Lewis Tepperman, transplant director at the Sandra Atlas Center for Liver Disease at North Shore University Hospital. 

When she awoke from her coma, Smith learned that the infection had gotten so bad, the medical team had given her a liver transplant. 

“I just though I just had a stomach virus or just something with my stomach,” Smith said

Hospitals have seen a recent uptick in liver failure patients.