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A Florida woman warned Facebook about a flesh-eating bacterium her father contracted while swimming – which cost her life less than 48 hours later.
"The flesh-eating bacteria are like an urban legend," Cheryl Bennett Wiygul of Niceville said Wednesday. "Let me assure you that this is not the case."
Wiygul's father, Dave Bennett, had come from Memphis last week and was in Destin, a prized beach in the Gulf of Mexico, with her and her mother.
The family spent a day doing jet skiing and "throwing the ball in the water" at Rocky Bayou – a stretch of sea connecting Choctawhatchee Bay – to Bennett's infection.
"We had a blast," remembers Wiygul, describing the week before the event.
"We were in the bay on the boat near Crab Island, we went twice to Destin Beach, we splashed around Turkey Creek, we swam in Boggy Bayou, in our pool and on Friday we spent the day in Rocky Bayou, "she said. "We left around 16:00. Dad stayed up late on Friday night and watched a movie. He was happy and talkative, seemed to feel good as he did all week. "
On Saturday morning, Bennett woke up with "fever, chills and cramps".
"My parents had still planned to go back to Memphis that morning and my mother wanted him to be with his doctor to have it checked," said Wiygul, pointing out that his father "had cancer, his system immune system was therefore compromised ".
"He had already been sick and they knew his story," she added. "So that seemed like the best thing to do."
The family was aware of the recent problems with "naturally occurring bacteria" in the waters around Destin and had been trying to prepare.
"My parents came to stay with me in Florida about a week after the message. A 12-year-old girl contracted a bacterium that turned into necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating bacteria) in Destin began to turn around, "Wiygul explained. "I did not want to believe it. My family loves being in the water. Our county, Okaloosa County, published an article titled "Rumor Control" in response to this article, which seemed to dispel everyone's fears. The girl had a cut in her leg, so I felt reinforced not to come home with a break. I looked for a little. When my parents arrived in town, I was fond of Neosporin and liquid bandaid. My father had no open wounds. He had some places where the practical side was cured of small scratches on the arms and legs that I assured myself to be perfectly sealed. My mother religiously blocked it by the sun. We took precautions and we were good, so I thought.
Bennett had "fought cancer for many years" and "had been in the water many times, so that did not seem like a risk" to go swimming, said Wiygul.
Less than forty-eight hours after their trip to Rocky Bayou, his father was dead.
"It's so raw and personal that I did not want to write about it, but if I can help someone, then it's worth it," Wiygul said.
She recounted how the doctors did their best to save her father, but there was finally nothing to do.
"They arrived at the Memphis hospital around 8 pm [Saturday]"Wiygul said, recalling how the medical staff" took it back immediately. "
"As they helped her change into a hospital gown, they saw this extremely swollen black patch on her back that was not there before. My mother sent me a photo of her and I felt like someone punched me. I called and asked if it was actually black (because sometimes the color is off on a photo) and she said it was black. I have never seen a cut in her back and she either. We certainly have not seen this place. I told him to tell them that he was in the water in Florida and that it was necrotizing fasciitis. She told everyone who came to the room. One person told him that the media exaggerated it. Others said that it was staphylococcus. They would not do it biopsy. They started taking intravenous antibiotics. The black spot had doubled in size. A new one was starting to appear. His arms became more and more stained by the minute and he was very hurt. Some nurses said they had never seen anything like it. At 1 am, he became skeptical and they transferred him to the USI. He coded shortly thereafter and they had to bring him back. My dad had a lot of medical problems, but the heart did not belong to it. They had to intubate it. He coded again. They said that his organs were too damaged and his blood was too acidic to stay alive. He had left Sunday afternoon.
Laboratory results later confirmed that Bennett contracted "Vibrio vulnificus, which manifests as necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating bacteria), eventually leading to sepsis," according to Wiygul.
"Vibrio vulnificus is a bacterium that is spread by eating uncooked molluscs or an open wound," she explained. "There was no warning about the bacteria on the beaches and parks where we went. They publish notices about the high number of bacteria, but there have not been any.
Wiygul hopes that his father's death and other similar incidents will allow officials to do something to warn people. A 77-year-old woman was infected last month and also died after swimming in Florida waters.
"I would never have taken my father into the water if there had been a bacterial alert," said Wiygul, "but that's because I did not want him to catch a stomach virus, not because I thought it would kill him.
She added, "I knew you should not swim with an open sore, but I did not know that he should not be in the water with his immune system. I feel that I should have known and it is something that I will live with for the rest of my life. If I had done more research, I would have done but I do not think that the general public realizes it either. I really believe that if there was a simple sign indicating the risk of swimming with an open wound or an immune disorder, we would not have let it in. "
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