A relaxing trip to a North Carolina beach turned into a nightmare for a man after he cut his thumb on a piece of wire in the sand and developed a flesh-eating bacterial infection.
Greg Coleman, 53, was at Topsail beach where he was trying to make a wire strainer so his wife could hunt for prehistoric shark teeth, which are known to wash up in the area.
As the handyman constructed the tool, he suffered several cuts and scrapes to his hands – but didn’t think anything of it.
However, two days after his beach visit on August 18, he noticed one of the small cuts on his thumb ‘blew up and got very, very sore.’
It wasn’t long after that Mr Coleman was rushing to the hospital with an infection from a drug-resistant bacteria that required the tip of his thumb to be amputated.
Greg Coleman, 53, was at Topsail beach in North Carolina when he sustained a small cut on his thumb which steadily worsened
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Detailing the chain of events, he said: ‘The infection started to run up my arm to my shoulder.
‘I got increasingly concerned about the state of my thumb and sought medical advice.
‘Initially, I did a virtual doctor’s visit to get some antibiotics but no one knew what it was or how to treat it.
‘However, the pain continued to increase and on August 22, I went to an urgent care where I was given an injection of antibiotics and some more pills.
‘Just two days after that, I had to rush to the ER where they admitted me and put me on intravenous antibiotics.’
The 53-year-old believes he contracted MRSA or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a drug-resistant bacteria that may have entered his bloodstream on the beach through the minor cut on his thumb.
As the hospital never performed a culture test to see what it was, it is unclear if Mr Coleman had MRSA – but he was displaying common MRSA symptoms and doctors also suspected it was a bacterial skin infection.
Staphylococcus aureus (staph) is a common germ that many people have in their body, but MRSA is a type of staph that is resistant to common antibiotics. This makes it difficult to treat and can lead to major health complications.
MRSA infections typically begin at the site of cuts, scrapes or broken skin and initially appear as a bump but develop into painful, red, swollen areas that may be filled with pus.
Severe cases of MRSA can lead to pneumonia, sepsis, necrotizing fasciitis – an infection that kills the body’s tissues – and death.
While the bacteria is resistant to common antibiotics, there are several others that have proven effective, and surgery is typically required to remove the entire infection.
MRSA most often occurs in hospitalized patients, affecting about 1.2million people per year.
Mr Coleman, who runs a small renewable gas power plant in North Carolina, said he had ‘never experienced pain like it’ as the infection set in, and it felt like his thumb was being ‘hit with a hammer over and over again.’
After being put on 11 different antibiotics, most of the infection was cured a month later.
However, the father-of-two experienced even more severe symptoms in late September when the bacteria traveled through his bloodstream and invaded his thumb bone.
To prevent the infection from spreading even further, he was rushed in for surgery, where doctors had to cut away the infected bone.
Now Mr Coleman says the wound is mostly healed, but he will be more careful next time he heads to the beach
The bacterial infection got into Mr Coleman’s thumb bone, so he had to have the tip removed
Although he did not lose his entire thumb, Mr Coleman was left with a divot at the tip.
Now, Mr Coleman says the wound is mostly healed and the infection is almost cleared, but he will be more careful next time he heads to the beach.
He added: ‘I did hear about another lady who had a scratch on her leg that got infected as well with MRSA the same week and after visiting the same beach.
‘As a child, I grew up on a farm and ran around all of the time with no shoes on and I lived in Africa for a year as an adult where I did the same. I would always get little cuts on my feet but every thing always healed in the past.
‘So it seems silly that I get a prick from a new wire in a first-world country and seek medical aid and it goes so bad.
‘If this had happened overseas when I was younger I definitely would have had to cut my thumb off to save myself.’
MRSA isn’t the only bacteria lurking on US beaches. The deadly flesh-eating vibrio vulnificus bacteria has, over the past year, been detected at beaches up and down the Eastern seaboard; off the coast of Long Island, in Connecticut, at beaches and shellfish restaurants in Florida, and more.
Vibrio cases have surged and sickened 11 people in three states last summer – North Carolina, New York, and Connecticut. The median age of patients was 70. Four people went into septic shock and five died.
All but one of those exposures were linked back to wound exposure to natural bodies of water.
Dr Lisa Plano, of the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, says in order to avoid bacterial infections at the beach, it is best to shower before and after going in the water.
And, if you have an open wound, it is best to avoid the beach altogether or ensure that existing scrapes and cuts are adequately bandaged.
