A woman has passed away only days after being infected by flesh-eating bacteria after walking along the beach.
Lynn Fleming from Ellenton, Florida was with her family at Coquina Beach along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico when she had a cut in her leg.
Her son, Wade, said to WTVT-TV: “She fell into it (a small depression), came out with a little three-quarters-of-an-inch cut, a bump on her leg.
“It was just a small cut, didn’t think much of it. We got the swelling down, but it just kept bleeding.”
After two days, Fleming went to a doctor who prescribed her antibiotics and gave her a tetanus shot. But the next day, she was found unconscious in her home and was taken immediately to hospital.
Her family was told she had contracted necrotizing fasciitis, life-threatening bacteria.
To save her life, doctors performed surgery. But she suffered sepsis and two strokes during the operations. Sadly, Fleming passed away.
Traci, her daughter-in-law, said: “This is the place she loved. She couldn’t wait to get down here and retire. She loved the ocean; she loved walking on the beach.
“Unfortunately, it’s the place that took her life by freak accident.”
Necrotizing fasciitis is a flesh-eating infection that destroys skin, muscles, and tissue. It is treated with surgery, aggressive supportive care, and antibiotics.
The condition can be caused by different bacteria, such as staphylococci or group-A streptococci.
One person commented: “It’s most likely vibriosis bacteria. Same bacteria you get from eating contaminated oysters from the gulf coast. It can also infect you by getting into cuts, etc when you swim or wade in the water.”
Another wrote: “Do not go into the water along the beaches on the gulf coast. This bacteria is not that rare. A friend’s mother almost lost her leg last year after getting flesh eating bacteria in a cut. This was at Biloxi, MS. And the local authorities are pretty quiet about this. No warning signs anywhere on the beach. They don’t want to lose those tourists dollars.”
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