Bill Handel

Bill Handel

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Flesh-Eating Bacteria Infects Man Fishing In Gulf Of Mexico

What an unfortunate turn of events.

Florida resident, Mike Walton, has been hospitalized after getting infected with a life-threatening flesh-eating bacteria while fishing on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

He is currently in the hospital being treated for necrotizing fasciitis which is considered a bacterial infection that's extremely rare in the America.

How did he attract this disease you ask?

He said as he was fishing off the coast of Palm Harbor, Walton felt himself struck by a fish. He didn't react because it's happened to him hundreds of times fishing before.

He eventually went to the hospital to get antibiotics after his hand began to swell. Within a day, he witnessed his hands grew black bubbles.

"I had like little blisters starting to form on my hand and you could watch like sweat beads coming up on side of the hand, and then they just turned black," he said.

Walton was immediately rushed to the hospital again and placed in the burn unit where infectious disease doctors could treat him.

The doctors were able to save his arm and life.

"When you look down and you can see your own tendons, back of your hand and your bone going up your arm," said Walton, "that makes it real."

Doctors did consider amputating Walton's arm, but were able to remove the bacteria in his tissues before that.

"They sliced all the way down my arm, to relieve the pressure, and then I got a skin graft going from my elbow to the palm of my hand," he said.


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