Florida resident dies from flesh-eating bacteria, officials confirm...from salt water...

a reply to: Vasa Croe


Your topic wording implies its FROM salt water. It is not. It should have read...."while swimming with an open wound IN salt water". Quite misleading I think.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Just one of the many, many "hospital-acquired" diseases created by our medical system and turned into a "community-acquired" nightmare in the quest for higher profits.


F&S&

I live in Brevard County Florida and we did have a couple people die from the bacteria last year. We have had some cases this year but no deaths that I am aware of.

I think some scientists/researchers belive that the bacteria increases in salt water bodies due to an increase in freshwater discharge.

We have experienced mass amounts of rain in the past month. This is pretty much an every day occurence during the summer.

So needless to say the Indian River Lagoon and the Atlantic have had a lower salinity level then normal. This may be why we are seeing an increase in the bacteria.

www.tatoott1009.com...

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
a reply to: rickymouse

Fresh as in not salt water, and stagnant as in lake or pond. I think there was one case of a girl on a river too.

This is the first I have heard of halotolerant flesh eating bacteria though.

There isn't much on the net of these bacteria yet. There seems to be lots about halotolerant bacteria but little about the flesh eating kind. I suppose as they learn more about this more will be available to us on the net.

Now swamp water has salts in it usually, coming from an accumulation from the breakdown of organic matter where the sodium works it's way down to the low areas during runoff. You can take a little soil from the bottom of the low area to your garden and your garden grows better around here because around here there is little salt. Salt is a complex structure.

Even bacteria need a little salt to live, but too much kills them usually. I just read an article that salt does not kill all bacteria though on Science daily I think. The article said that some bacteria build a crystal cocoon out of the salt before they dehydrate when the water evaporates. That is cool information. So not all bacteria are killed by salt. The article did not say if these particular bacteria were bad for humans though, so I am not going to worry about it, I think they would have mentioned that part if it were relevant.

a reply to: weirdguy
Ooooh thats bad(insert Jaws movie theme)..lol, reminds me of the swimming pool scene in Caddyshack.