Posted on 03/10/2006 6:28:34 AM PST by SUSSA
DUNN, N.C. - North Carolina health officials are investigating the death of a woman who died last week of a flesh-eating bacteria three days after accidentally jamming her hand in a wheelchair while working at a nursing home.
Nursing assistant Sharron Bishop, 44, died Feb. 27. A doctor said a rare flesh-eating bacteria may have entered her body through a thumb injury and she turned from healthy to fatally ill.
(snip)
Sharon Bishop complained on Feb. 24 about a swollen thumb. She had jammed it at work and worried that she had dislocated it. David Bishop took her to Betsy Johnson Regional Hospital, where doctors gave her pain medication and sent her home.
The swelling got worse. By the morning of Feb. 27, her arm was twice as large as normal and looked like it would burst, David Bishop said. Fluid leaked from her elbow and wrist. She complained of terrific pain.
(snip)
Dunn physician Abraham Oudeh diagnosed necrotizing fasciitis, an infection that destroys tissue.
Doctors at UNC Hospitals that evening tried to stop the spreading infection by amputating her arm at the clavicle and removing all the muscle and tissue around her left breast, torso and thigh in a futile effort to save her life.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
What a horrible way to die!
The speed is remarkable..3 days..
You are so right, it is a horrible way to die. I lost my first wife to such a disease, but it didn't happen nearly this fast.
Another reason to avoid old people........
Where does this come from? How could this just be floating around.
A recent study found this bacteria on 25% of the pay phones in O'Hare airport.
Tele-terrorism!
Hospitals are where the germs are.
4 years ago this killed my best friend, he went from healthy to passed away in 72 hours. Watching him die was the most painfull thing I have ever seen. The bacteria ate him from the inside out.
"I lost my first wife to such a disease, but it didn't happen nearly this fast."
Mercy! What a horrible loss! How did she contract it? I am sorry for this happening- did she have a surgery prior?
Andromeda Strain........
I'm sorry for your loss.
Uh-oh.
Note to self - Never, ever, use a pay phone again........
With such a proliferation of the bacteria as that, you would think cases of it would be more common... It must be that most folks are not succeptable to it if it is that prevalent.
Prayers to the family. Whats a pay phone?
They still have them around here. I don't know about up north............
I don't think they know. My son developed staph infection that had to be surgically removed from the crook of his arm...With this there
was no break in the skin anywhere that we could determine...it was in the soft tissue near the bone. Thank God it was not in the bone. He already had to spend ten days in the hospital with it in the tissue alone.
Now nearly two months later my daughter developed it in the in her gums. We think it started in the gum area where she had to have a root canal that went bad. It spread to the cuticle on her forefinger from nail biting. Now I asked the doctor if this is infectious staph. He said they did not know, but they are seeing a lot of these cases.
Tom Servo, praying that you are on the mend.
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