Horror as woman told she could lose a thumb after terrible mistake during manicure

A woman in Australia has been told she could lose her thumb after a manicure went horribly wrong.

Sue, from Perth, said she ended up contracting a bone-eating bacteria after receiving the treatment at a beauty salon in Perth.

Watch her explain her shocking story here:

Sue told 9News that she now lives with agonising pain in her thumb after she contracted a staph bacteria infection which is gradually eating away at the bone.

The 48-year-old said she got the infection after going for a manicure with her daughter two years ago.

She claimed the nail technician thought her nails were acrylic and ground them away, before soaking them in acetone.

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"It really throbs and you can't get away from it," Sue said.

"You wouldn't go into a dirty dentist so why would you go into a dirty nail bar?

"I did tell them they were my actual nails but they kept grinding them still."

Sue said she had to spend five days in hospital, with a surgeon removing a chunk of her thumb.

She added that doctors warned her that it may have to be amputated.

"I can't know what the future is," Sue said. "There is no end to it - not until the specialists have signed me off to say it's all good."

Sue is now taking legal action and is seeking compensation, claiming hygiene rules were not followed.

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In Western Australia, salon customers are protected by consumer law, but there are no specific hygiene laws for nail salons, only guidelines.

"If those guidelines were somehow turned into regulations that would give certainty to the beauty industry," Slater and Gordon senior associate Joachim Azzopardi told 9News.

"It just seems as though those practices were not up to standard.

"And that is what has resulted in Sue's nasty infection to her nail bed."

The salon where Sue had the manicure is now under new management; however, the people who were operating the salon at the time of her treatment have insisted that they met all hygiene requirements.