A young mother was left fighting for her life after she contracted a bacterial infection after borrowing a friend's makeup brush. 

Jo Gilchrist, from Warwick, Queensland, will likely spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair after a staph infection attacked her spine.

Gilchrist, 27, was rushed to hospital on Valentine's Day after a niggling pain in her back grew steadily worse - leaving her writhing in agony.

Speaking to Warwick Daily News, she said: "It got to the point I had to call one of those doctors who come to you because I couldn't get out of bed.

"I rate the pain worse than childbirth. I literally thought I was going to die." Doctors were initially unable to diagnose Gilchrist's condition, and she went on to lose feeling in parts of her body. She said: "They told me if it went up my arms and chest I would have to learn to breathe again and it would be my parents' decision to turn the machines off." After the young mother was airlifted from her home to the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane she underwent emergency surgery. Upon waking, Jo learned that she had contracted MRSA, and the infection had damaged her spine so badly that she would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. The infection was contracted when Gilchrist borrowed her friend's makeup brush to cover a pimple. She will still have to spend another three months in the hospital before she is allowed to return home to her two-year-old son Timmy. Somewhere in the region of one-third of healthy people carry staph bacteria on their skin or in their nose, while drug-resistant strains are known as MRSA.