WARNING: Graphic content
A beachgoing Florida woman has died days after she contracted a flesh-eating bacteria through a cut in her leg.
Lynn Fleming of Ellenton, Florida, was with her son and his wife two weeks ago at Coquina Beach, which is near Tampa and along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
As she walked along the beach, she stepped into a small depression that she couldn’t see because it was underwater.
Fleming suffered what seemed to be a harmless cut in her leg.
“She fell into it, came out with a little three-quarters-of-an-inch cut, a bump on her leg,” her son, Wade, told WTVT-TV.
“It was just a small cut, didn’t think much of it.”
“We got the swelling down, but it just kept bleeding.”
Two days later, Fleming paid a visit to the doctor, who gave her a tetanus shot and prescribed her antibiotics.
The next day, Fleming was found unconscious in her home. She was then rushed to hospital.
Doctors told her family that she had contracted necrotising fasciitis, a rare but deadly bacteria.
In an effort to save her life, doctors performed surgery. During the operations, however, she suffered two strokes and sepsis.
Fleming died on Thursday.
“This is the place she loved,” her daughter-in-law, Traci, said.
“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.”
Necrotising fasciitis is a flesh-eating infection that can destroy muscles, skin and tissue.
It is typically managed by surgery, antibiotics and aggressive supportive care.
Different bacteria can cause necrotising fasciitis.
Necrotising fasciitis can be caused by group-A streptococci or by staphylococci, common bacteria that live on people’s skin and in their noses, according to medical officials.
