PENSACOLA, Fla. — Vibrio vulnificus has been dubbed a “flesh-eating bacteria” by doctors and scientists. In some instances, the bacteria enters the body through open wounds.
This year, seven cases have been confirmed in Florida Panhandle waters. Three of those cases were contracted in Escambia County.
Genevieve Gallagher says she wishes she had known the risks before jumping in the water. She says she almost lost her leg and her life.
She is still fighting off the infection. She says she never would have gotten vibrio if government officials took certain precautions.
Gallagher is the newest victim in a string of vibrio vulnificus infections in Escambia County.
“If I would have had heard of vibrio, yes, I would have been like, ‘I’m not getting in that water at all,'” said Gallagher.
Gallagher, her husband and seven-year-old daughter went swimming in Santa Rosa Sound in late July. Less than a week later, she was rushed into surgery, diagnosed with a vibrio infection.
“I was intubated for about six days and finally woke up and saw that I had a leg that didn’t even look like my own leg anymore,” Gallagher said. “Because they had to clean away so much of that flesh-eating bacteria.”
The county currently doesn’t do routine testing for vibrio in the water. Environmental specialist Sava Varazo says that needs to change. He says the bacteria can be detected with a quick, inexpensive litmus test.
“It’s a good, reliable,” Varazo said. “It’s a high reliability test. It’s simple to implement the results… You can get those results very quick sometimes in less than 30 to 40 minutes, so it’s a quick, reliable test. It’s much better than what we have now, which is nothing.”
“If we were to test for vibrio, we would find vibrio in every sample that we tested,” Escambia County’s senior scientist Chips Kirschenfeld said. “The problem is there’s really nothing we can do as far as best management practices or any kind of upland treatment to reduce those numbers.”
“When you really think about the number of people who get infected in the water, the numbers are really quite low,” he said. “You know, here in the Escambia County, we have an average of five infections per year. We have a million people that go to Pensacola Beach every year and five people get infections. That’s 0.0005% chance of getting a vibrio infection.”
Kirschenfeld says this about the choice for the county to do routine vibrio testing, or post educational signage.
“That, that’s certainly a political decision,” said Kirschenfeld.
But for Gallagher, the answer is clear.
“I said there needs to be signs out there stating there is flesh-heating bacteria to be known to be in this water, or they need to have those signs and they need to have testing done during the summertime saying levels are high, levels are low, whatever,” Gallagher said.
Since she contracted vibrio, Gallagher has had multiple surgeries in various hospitals around the state. Her family has started a GoFundMe to help with the costs.
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