Genevieve Gallagher nearly lost her leg and her life after contracting vibrio vulnificus bacteria after swimming with her daughter, Mila, in Santa Rosa Sound, off Pensacola Beach, on July 27. Doctors believe she became infected through a small cut on her left leg.

The pain, said Genevieve Gallagher, was "unbelievable."

The Florida woman nearly lost her life and her leg to the flesh-eating bacteria known as Vibrio vulnificus, or Vibrio, after swimming with her daughter in Santa Rosa Sound off Pensacola Beach on July 27.

She's not the only one struggling to recover from the devastating effects of the Vibrio infection. Cases have been reported elsewhere in Florida, as well as in Louisiana and as far north as Maryland. Warnings have been issued at beaches and bays along the Gulf Coast, and even in Massachusetts.

Vibrio vulnificus, part of the Vibrio family of bacteria, can cause severe and life-threatening infections. It can also cause necrotizing fasciitis, killing the flesh around an open wound. One-in-5 people who get the infection die, and anyone with it will require intensive medical care.

Gallagher is one of them.

'Almost down to the bone'

Gallagher has been treated at a Gainesville hospital for wounds she received after doctors were forced to remove much of the tissue on her left leg below the knee to stop the Vibrio bacteria from progressing.

“They debrided my leg down to the bare meat,” Gallagher said in an interview from her hospital bed. “They took most of the muscle, almost down to the bone, basically. It went up almost to my knee, so it's a pretty large amount, and it's all the way around my leg.”

Gallagher believes the bacteria infected her body through a small cut on her left leg.

She started showing symptoms three days after she went boating with her husband, Dana, and her 7-year-old daughter, Mila, behind the Pensacola Beach Boardwalk and swam near Quietwater Beach.

Vibrio bacteria can be common in warm, brackish waters, like those along the Gulf Coast states of Louisiana, Texas and Florida, Dr. Larry Madoff told USA TODAY in August. But it's also being seen more often in northeastern states along the Atlantic coast, said Madoff, medical director for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences.

Vibrio can enter the body through open wounds. Certain health conditions, including liver disease, cancer, diabetes or HIV, or immunosuppressants, raise the risk for severe illness. Symptoms of the infection include diarrhea, stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, fever, chills, dangerously low blood pressure and blistering lesions. Wounds that become infected may be red, swollen or discolored and may have a discharge

Gallagher, 49, was at work on July 30 when she began sweating, feeling unwell, and her leg swelled and bubbled with blisters.

By that afternoon, Gallagher was in the emergency room, and was rushed her into surgery.

A weeks-long ordeal

“I thought I had an infection, but never did I think I had a flesh-eating bacterium,” Gallagher said. “There’s no antibiotics that they can give you to stop it. They just have to get out any infected skin and tissue. They’ve got to get it off your body.”

Gallagher said she went into septic shock, which caused her organs to fail. She was intubated for nearly a week while medical staff at Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola worked to save her, including repeatedly scrubbing and cleaning out her leg to remove any dying tissue.

Her family stayed by her bedside around the clock after doctors warned them that she could not only lose her leg to the illness — she could lose her life.

“They were finally able to get me stable enough to wake me up. Sacred Heart saved my leg, thank God,” Gallagher said. “Mila saw me in the hospital and said, ‘I wish this happened to me and not you,’ and I started crying. That broke my heart. I was like, ‘Mila, no, I'm so glad it didn't happen to you. Your little body could not have taken all this that's going on.’”

Medical staff at UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville has been working to help Gallagher recover. The Vibrio bacteria is gone but repairing the damage it caused to her leg isn’t easy.

She’s had multiple surgeries including having muscle removed from her back and placed on her leg where the bone was exposed. The flap surgery didn’t take due to blood clots, however, and Gallagher will have to undergo surgery again.

“Just looking at my leg, it doesn't even look like my leg anymore,” Gallagher said. “It looks deformed right now. The pain is unbelievable. It feels like somebody took gasoline, poured it on my leg, and lit my leg on fire. That's what it feels like.”

Vibrio warning for others

While Vibrio infections are relatively rare, Gallagher is sharing her story as a warning to others.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests taking the following precautions to avoid infection:

  • Cover any open wound, including from recent surgeries, piercings, tattoos, cuts or scrapes, with a waterproof bandage and do not wade, swim or fish in coastal waters if you have one;
  • Cover any such wounds when handling raw seafood, including drippings and juices;
  • Wash your hands and surfaces thoroughly when cooking with raw seafood;
  • Thoroughly cook any seafood if you are at increased risk for serious illness;
  • Immediately and thoroughly wash wounds and cuts with soap and clean, running water after exposure to coastal water;
  • Wear clean clothes to protect yourself while in the water if you're among those who might be more vulnerable to illness

The day she went swimming, Gallagher took steps to cover the small cut on her leg with a waterproof bandage.

However, she said she would not have gone into the water at all had she known the bacterial infection was such a serious risk.

“When it's so hot and that water is not moving, that bacteria is just growing and growing and growing,” she said. “There are no signs out there saying, ‘Hey, this water has a high infection rate for Vibrio,’ or, ‘Hey, this water tested positive,’ like they do in Panama City, because I'm sure if they did, people would not be swimming over there.”

According to the Florida Department of Health, there have been 25 cases of Vibrio and five deaths in Florida so far this year. In late August, contaminated oysters sickened several people in Louisiana, killing two people and sending 22 others to the hospital. And a person was infected at an area on the western end of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, prompting officials there to issue an alert.

Gallagher is grateful for the medical care and support she has received through her ordeal.

She hopes her story will help protect others.

“It's been a lot on me and my family,” Gallagher said. “My husband drives to Shands every weekend and stays with me because my mental health has just been horrible. I’ve been strong through it all, but it’s been a lot mentally, emotionally and physically.”

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Flesh-eating bacteria tried to kill her. Here's what it took to survive.

Reporting by Mollye Barrows and Phaedra Trethan, USA TODAY NETWORK / Pensacola News Journal

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