Gangrene set in, and his right leg was amputated below the knee.

Kyrastas was admitted on 5 March 2004 to hospital with septicaemia, after being infected with the rare Fournier gangrene.

Another of Dietrich's famous friends was poet René Daumal. After becoming lightly wounded during a bombardment in 1944, Dietrich developed hemiplegia and then gangrene, and died the same year.

Doctors told him he was one week away from losing the leg to gangrene.

He called the Royal tax collectors "the oppressors of the peasants and creators of the gangrene of the country."

A picture of Zacherley alongside fellow horror host Dr. Gangrene appeared in the October 30, 2007 issue of USA Today in an article about Horror Host entitled Halloween horror hosts rise again on radio, TV, film written by David Colton.