Flesh-eating bacteria devour man's arm and leg in just three days
https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/04/flesh-eating-bacteria-devour-mans-arm-and-leg-in-just-three-days/Open linkView original on lemmy.worldhttps://arstechnica.com/health/2026/04/flesh-eating-bacteria-devour-mans-arm-and-leg-in-just-three-days/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
I was worried until I read the first line:
"A 74-year-old man went to an emergency department in Florida with rapidly rotting limbs after jumping into the waters off Florida’s Gulf Coast."
I won't be stepping foot in Florida and I refuse to swim in the ocean as everything in it wants you dead.
Ah yes, surely it'll be contained to Florida, the state so very concerned with things like stopping the spread of disease or climate change.
Let them eat limbs
Welp, there's your problem:
"Between 1998 and 2018, US cases of V. vulnificus increased eightfold, including expanding into areas where the bacteria is considered rare, including Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine."
If it's in the Gulf, and then all the way to Maine, the entire Eastern Seaboard is potentially compromised.
How does the West Coast look?
5.9% of 529 samples of water on the West Coast. Seems less prevalent and fewer sources of infection.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC203868/
Did you read the second part of my last sentence?
Not just the ocean.
Bone apple tea!
Step foot is American for set foot.
Look at this person, putting American vernacular up on a petty stool.
They often get English wrong.
We didn't invent it. We made it less stuffy though. Black Americans made it cool.
Are you sure about that? I couldn't find it in any dictionary.
"Bone apple tea" is nonsense.
"Stepping foot" literally describes what is happening, just with a different wording.
It's like the difference between calling a "ladybug" a "ladybird" - it's basically just regional dialect.
People say that shit all the time, quit trying to feel smart online.
It's a boring malapropism, like when people say "chomping at the bit" (instead of "champing").
It's not like I said "irregardless" or used "orgasm" instead of "organism".
Good thing we're making the planet warmer so the absolute horrors nature cooks up where it's warm can expand their range.
These bacteria, the fungi, and slow-release viruses frozen under us are going to be so fun though! Aren’t you excited for (more) daily new abhorrant news as time passes?
The horrors persist, but so do I.
They’re hardly getting started, while you’re on the inevitable decline.
the water is becoming so acidic and bacterial near florida its killing off sea borne mammals because its too caustic for their skin and for their prey species
https://studyfinds.com/mysterious-deaths-dolphins-florida-indian-river-lagoon/
Sure does.
Always give yourself a pat down after going in to nature. Whether it's flesh eating bacteria from water in an unknown cut, lyme disease from a tick, a little gnome hitching a ride — better to just play it safe and give yourself a twice-over.
Ideally the concept is to pat yourself down and find your tiny cuts, clean them, and then monitor them. That way you won't be totally blindsided by it suddenly growing red and swollen.
That being said, yeah even finding and cleaning the cuts isn't foolproof — just like finding the tick that bit you may not stop you from getting Lyme disease.
Pure nightmare fuel.
I don't usually like reading medical body horror, and that reminded me why.
I’m not saying that this isn’t true, but when I google it, every other article or report points back to this one. There’s no specific beach that he was at, just “Gulf Coast”, and no specific hospital. It just makes me suspicious when there’s only one article to be found.
Did you follow the link in the article to the NEJM report?
I missed the link in the article. I went back and tried to read it, but its paywalled. But yes, a link to an article in the NEJM legitimizes it. I visit the Gulf Coast of Florida, and I wanted to know where this happened. When I wasn’t able to find any location, it made me question whether this was legitimate.
Missing the link would definitely prevent one from following it. Lol
I didn't worry about the legitimacy much because ars tech is pretty good about those things I knew there had to be a link in there somewhere. It was easy to miss so I don't fault you
Generally these cases are always going to be rare and it's an elderly or immunocompromized person, and they probably had a small cut. It requires a confluence of factors. If you were there your immune system would probably just push them out easily.
The Gulf of Mexico (!) is a toilet.
You mean Gulf of America ? :()
nightmare fuel
This is why DeSantis is governor of Florida, if he or someone just like him wasnt governor, they might feel compelled to do a damn thing about it
would they prefer something in orange