A retired Philadelphia police officer has died after fighting a flesh-eating bacteria infection, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The infection that killed Jerome Rodio, 75, occurred after the retired officer helped a man bring up several crab traps, scratching the inside of his arm as he did so. Mr. Rodio then washed the wound with water from the Chesapeake Bay, which harbored the deadly bacteria. Three days later, Mr. Rodio died.
"At one point he showed me the scratch and we laughed about it," said Gene Rodio, who accompanied his father on a boat that morning. "It was only two inches, like a nasty cat had taken a swing at him."
Vibrio vulnificus is one of roughly a dozen Vibrio species that cause the vibriosis illness in humans. Vibriosis is typically accompanied by watery diarrhea, abdominal cramping, nausea, vomiting, fever and chills and commonly occurs after eating raw seafood, particularly oysters. Vibrio bacteria can also cause a necrotizing skin infection when an open wound is exposed to brackish or salty water where the bacteria dwell.
According to the CDC, vibriosis causes 80,000 illnesses and 100 fatalities annually in the U.S.
In June, two men battled Vibrio infections in Texas. Both lived, but one lost his leg to the infection.
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