Flesh-eating bacteria kills man after fishing trip

Sad story. My prayers go out to the family. The uncle of one of my son's friends got infected a few years ago with Vibrio vulnificus somewhere along the Upper Laguna Madre and barely survived it. Nasty stuff.

We now carry a small spray bottle of bleach solution whenever we are wade fishing to spray on any cuts or abrasions. My understanding is that you need to mix it up a fresh batch each time because when bleach is mixed with water it will gradually lose effectiveness.
 
Story in the Chronicle today by the outdoors writer about his first contact (not personal) with this 25 years ago.

I rarely go to the Gulf anymore, but I can't think of a time that I didn't end up with some sort of scrape or cut just from frolicking in the surf.
 
You don't get it in the surf. You get it in the back bays. It's unclear why, but the brackish water seems to be a breeding ground for the stuff.
 
for you average person exposure isn't usually a big deal. In each instance of horror such as this you will find people that are immune depressed and/or have a blood borne disease like Hepatitis.

Horrible for the man and his family, and as Nick Danger said it's normally a back bay thing where the water doesn't turnover and is often brackish.
 
There are some nasty little critters out on the planet. I watched a show on Animal Planet the other night called "Parasites; Sleeper Cells" about various worms that invade your body.

- one of them an infant contracted a worm that spreads via Raccoon feces. A tiny spec of that **** could have 10k eggs in it. The kid was crawling around outside, and probably put some twig or leaf in his mouth. Damn things invaded his brain, caused him to go blind, and nearly killed him. Took about a month before they can even figure out what was wrong with him.

- Dude in Vietnam comes home with Malaria, gets treated, and then goes about his life with slight cough and breathing problems. 30 years later, legs and nuts are swelling up something fierce, and he can barely walk. The mosquito that bit him was also carrying something else common to the tropics, and after so long the dead worms in his body start clogging up the lymph systems and cause elephantiasis.

Creepy *** ****, yo. To the docs out there, if I were to visit one of these remote, exotic places, could I get on an anti-parasite drug the moment I get home....just in case?
 
This thread is enough to make me stay out of any body of water larger than my bathtub.

Nasty, nasty stuff. Horrible.
 
1. "Flesh eating bacteria" are often garden-variety germs that somehow get the upper hand, even in healthy hosts. Sometimes there is a known exposure, open wound, or other risk factor, but not always. The most common causative organisms for nec. fasc. are Staph and Strep.

2. Amebiasis is often fatal, but typically in the course of weeks, not hours. PAM (N. fowleri) is treatable with various drugs, with ampho(tericin B) the mainstay. It is given both IV and directly into the CSF (cerebrospinal fluid-- think a spinal or brain tap) itself for this condition.

3. Vibrio species are often very bad news. There is a reason I would not swim in brackish water.
 
It's scary stuff. I knew that I was going on a pre-work wade this morning, so when my effing cat decided to attack my foot last night for no apparent reason, I got a little pissed. As far as cat scratches go, this one was pretty bad. Got another nice little cut on my finger taking a trout off the hook this morning. I'll be playing close attention to these "wounds" over the next couple of days.
 
Are you saying you can get this in normal Gulf coast beach waters? It doesn't have to be a brackish bay?
Please clarify.
How common is this?
Millions swim in the Gulf every year, surely it couldn't be very common.
 
It is EVERYWHERE in the coastal waters. Supposedly it has always been there and that it and it's effects are not a new phenomenon. I have an idea why pulque stated his one-liner, but for those of us who wade fish, and follow the reports, it seems to have a common thread of the infection coming from exposure in the bays and usually in somewhat skanky water.

The fishing guide I bought a boat from got hit by a sting ray this summer and ended up losing his leg and almost his life because he failed to seek treatment. It wasn't the ray, but the vibrio. That's the street lore, anyway.
 
It is supposedly one of the reasons why restaurants warn against eating raw shellfish or fish (oysters, sushi) if you have a liver condition.
 
that's crazy. i don't think there is a fishing trip to the bay where i didn't prick my finger with a hook or a hardhead.
 
Yeah, you can't go fishing without cutting yourself somehow, on a hook, a knife, rocks, barnacles, pier, splinters, fins, teeth, scales. Almost impossible.
I guess your normal immune system ordinarily dispatches this bacteria, like most others we are exposed to all the time.
I grew up in Galveston and lived at the beach all summer, swimming, surfing, and fishing-sounds like you may have almost zero chance of a full blown case of this unless you have compromised immune system.
Sharks and coke machines are more likely to kill you, but it's still a frightening thought.
 
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