Md. Woman Recalls Contracting Flesh-Eating Bacteria
Aug. 18--Grace Brown was on the pier of her Pasadena home last month, as her four grandsons took turns jumping from the dock into Stony Creek.
The next day, the 76-year-old was rushed by ambulance to Baltimore Washington Medical Center with severe pain coming from a toe on her right foot. Grace and her husband of 58 years, Jack Brown, described her foot as turning dark red with spots that had also turned black and green.
"I was screaming," she said. "I'd never hurt like that before."
After several days at BWMC and later Harbor Hospital in Baltimore where underwent surgery, the grandmother was back at her home on Monday.
Doctors told Brown that she had contracted Vibrio -- a flesh eating bacteria that thrives in warm waters. A handful of cases of Vibrio are reported in Anne Arundel each year, the majority of which are borne from water, according to information provided by the county's Department of Health.
In 2014, nine cases of vibrio were reported by the health department. Seven of those were waterborne -- with four being associated with the Chesapeake Bay or its tributaries, Elin Jones, a health department spokeswoman, said.
Another two cases were reported as being food related, Jones said.
Jones could not provide the most recent statistics for 2015.
The infection can be transmitted either by water through cuts on the skin or by eating undercooked seafood like oysters, clams or shellfish, said David Rose, the county department's deputy health officer said.
The bacterium grows in local waters during the warmer summer months, Rose said.
"This is the time of the year for it in the water," Rose said.
If not treated, the infection can cause severe illness -- even death, Rose said. The infection can become more serious for those with weakened immune systems.
"Thankfully, most of the time these things can be treated with antibiotics," Rose said.
Symptoms can appear as quickly as 12-to-72 hours after contact, he said.
Though she can't be certain exactly where she contracted the infection, Brown believes that it may have entered her skin while she was wearing sandals on the dock at her Curtis Bay home on July 24. Puddles of water had formed on the dock from where her grandsons exited the water, she said.
"I think just walking in the puddles is where I contracted it," she said.
None of her grandsons present that day, who ranged from ages 4 to 20, contracted an infection, Brown said. All together, Brown and her husband have seven children, 17 grandchildren and more than a dozen great- and great-great-grandchildren, the couple said.
While Brown said that she heard of the bacteria before, this was her first encounter with it.
Brown grew up on the water. Her father was a commercial fisherman and crabber in the region. For years, she and her family had lived on a house boat in the Pasadena area, she said.
The 76-year-old spent five days at BWMC where doctors monitored the infection and prescribed her medication for the pain. She was initially told she wouldn't require surgery, she said.
She was released from the hospital and went home on July 30. However, a few days after her release her family had to call for an ambulance again after a bad reaction to medication in which her throat closed up.
This time, she was taken to Harbor Hospital where a doctor performed a procedure to scape the infection from her toe, she said. She was hospitalized for another five days there, she said.
As of Monday, Brown was still walking around her Curtis Bay home with bandages wrapped around her foot.
"I looked at my toe on the way home and said, 'thank God I still have a toe,'" she said.
Rose encouraged local residents to take preventive measures to ward off of the bacteria.
Those cooking shellfish should cook thoroughly and clean surfaces in their kitchens. Those with cuts or sores on their skin should keep them away from local waterways, he said.
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