HEROIN contaminated with a flesh-eating bacteria killed a drug-addict Wythenshawe mum in just two days.

Pat Pender, 34, became the first Manchester victim of a "junkie epidemic" which started in Glasgow and swept through Britain in May.

An inquest heard Pat died after injecting her left buttock with heroin contaminated with the rare Clostridium bug. She collapsed and was taken to Wythenshawe Hospital where doctors performed emergency surgery to remove her left buttock, which had been destroyed in hours by the bacteria. Pat died in intensive care where doctors told the family they would have had little hope of saving her even if she had been brought in sooner.

Pathologist Philip Hasleton said: "I have never seen anything like this in my whole working life before. I have never come across so horrendous a case."

Pat, who had recently come off a methadone programme to tackle her addiction abuse, had been a user for nearly 10 years.

The source of the contamination has never been identified, but it is believed that it may have come from sacks in which the drug was stored during transit from South America. Recording a verdict of misadventure, coroner Leonard Gorodkin said: "There are always risks when taking heroin but this was not an overdose but a lack of purity with the substance."

Clostridium-laced heroin killed 22 people in Glasgow this May, and a further 12 cases were reported in Greater Manchester and Liverpool.

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