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‘Real Housewives of Orange County’ Star Vicki Gunvalson Reflects on ‘Almost’ Losing Daughter Briana

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Vicki Gunvalson and Briana Culberson Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

The Real Housewives of Orange County star Vicki Gunvalson has revealed that her daughter, Briana Culberson, almost died.

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“We almost lost her a couple years ago. That was one of the biggest fears I had in my life while I was filming; it’s my ‘Oh, my God,’ moment,” Gunvalson, 54, told the Daily Dish podcast on Tuesday, August 7. “She was super, super sick; got a very, very bad infectious disease from the hospital. They almost amputated her leg.”

The 31-year-old nurse was transferred to Los Angeles’ City of Hope in Southern California and was put in isolation for a month. “The viewers don’t know but we can share it now because she survived it,” the Bravo personality said. “But it was horrible.”

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Back in July 2017, Gunvalson claimed that Culberson contracted an infection from a surgery she underwent in Oklahoma. “It almost killed my daughter,” she told Access Hollywood at the time. “[The scalpel was infected] with feces from a previous surgery the day they put inside her body. So, not good, she almost lost her leg. I mean she almost died and all this stuff.”

Culberson, who was diagnosed with lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease, in 2016, lives in North Carolina with her husband, Ryan Culberson, and their sons Troy and Owen. She has not made any cameos on season 13 of the hit reality show. 

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Though Gunvalson misses having Briana close by in Orange County, she is grateful that her daughter is receiving good medical care at the University of North Carolina Medical Center. “[That] is actually where she works. She’s an ER trauma nurse,” gushed the proud mom. “They’ve got a great lupus center out there. So if God brought her out there to help her get through this, that was the good thing from it.”

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