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Lonny Hurd, a resident of South Bowers, is eager to get rid of the antibiotics to which he is subjected since a year has been infected with a bacteria from Delaware Bay.
He blames him on a burst.
"I dug it out like you usually do and I put Mercurochrome, and I thought I had cured it," said Hurd, 75.
Waterman and fishing enthusiast, he went to the bay with his wife, as both men have done for decades.
Two weeks later, his right ring finger began to swell. Hurd said that he had gone to see his doctor, who had cut his finger thinking that it was an abscess. Inside was a substance resembling a jelly. The doctor prescribed an antibiotic in Hurd, but after two weeks the swelling had spread to his wrist. He was operated on in Dover, where some of the swollen skin was removed. About two months later, Hurd explained, a tissue biopsy revealed that it was a fairly common bacterium among men fishing, fishermen and crabbers. The stump he had did not eat flesh, but stayed close to the skin, he said.
After a new antibiotic that he's been using for seven months, Hurd said, he was recovering until February when he noticed a lump along the collarbone near the throat. A surgeon withdrew the mass, thinking that it was a cancer, he said, before discovering that it was a matter of life. hardened bacteria that had been destroyed by the antibiotic.
Hurd said he hopes his doctor will soon remove the antibiotic, because it makes him sensitive to the sun and has limited his leisure outdoors. He said that he will never go back to the bay with an open wound.
"I have spent all my life in Delaware Bay and I did not expect that to happen," he said. "It has been such a long and long ordeal."
He said that he was not likely to be exploded again, and he removed all the wooden materials from his deck and railings and replaced them with synthetic materials. "It's all gone," he says.
Hurd said doctors told him that five or six bacteria were growing in Delaware waters, including the flesh-eating Vibrio vulnificus, which was making headlines this summer.
Detect Vibrio
Dr. Scott Olewiler of Beebe Healthcare's Infectious Diseases Unit said that people who contract Vibrio swim in the water with an open wound or consume raw or undercooked shellfish, such as oysters and crabs. Vibrio causes a dangerous or even deadly infection.
Vibrio is a waterborne bacterium found in brackish water, especially in bays, including Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay. He said that in the past two years, Beebe had had eight cases involving Vibrio, identified by blood tests. Of these cases, he said, four involved gastrointestinal problems, such as diarrhea; one or two were wound infections and the others produced symptoms similar to those of the flu.
Vibrio causes a very serious infection, he said. For those infected while swimming, symptoms include redness of the skin and blotches or purplish bubbles under the skin near the wound. Symptoms begin within 24 hours of exposure, Olewiler said. People with symptoms should go to the emergency department as soon as possible.
Although there are different kinds of Vibrio bacteria, the two most common are the parahaemolyticus, which is more benign and easier to treat, and the vulnificus, which often results in death, especially in people with dementia. preexisting liver or kidney disease, Olewiler said.
Prevent infection
Olewiler stated that Vibrio flourished at a water temperature of 68 to 70 degrees. People should not go to the warmer waters of the bay. If you cut yourself or scratch, get out of the water and treat the wound quickly. If you see red dots within 12 hours, go to the emergency room.
More importantly, said Olewiler, do not eat raw shellfish and make sure the shellfish are cooked well. Boiling crabs or other shellfish will kill the bacteria, but not freezing or chilling the crabmeat will not do it, he said. Olewiler said that people should not eat raw crabmeat or raw oysters either.
Olewiler also warned that people should carefully wash their cutting boards immediately if they used them to cut raw seafood.
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