Free Republic

Aimee Hall, who starred alongside Medas on the popular MTV reality show, announced the tragic news on Facebook on Friday, May 2. “We lost our brother, our best friend, our heart — Kirk,” Hall, 32, wrote. “I was at the beach when I felt it. Before the call even came, a dolphin kept coming up to me, as if to say goodbye.” According to Medas, he only ended up on “Floribama Shore” because he tagged along with a “nervous” friend who tried landing a spot on the show. “My buddy called me and was like, ‘I’m getting interviewed for this...

A young boy was rushed to the hospital after he contracted a flesh-eating bacteria at a Maryland beach. Brittany Carey shared two graphic images of her son's leg where the bacteria began eating away at his flesh in three spots. Carey said in a Facebook post on Saturday that her parents had taken her son out for a beach day off the coast of Ocean City on June 23. She wrote that her son had a great time swimming until June 24 when she 'started noticing little spots developing all over his body'. 'Tuesday morning there were open wounds developing...

Ms. Smith’s tragic demise was more dramatic than many cases of hospital-acquired infection (HAI). Necrotizing fasciitis is a frightening, but rare, complication. Still, about 8,000 Canadians a year die from bugs they contract in facilities meant to make them better, while many more see their hospital stay prolonged by such illness. Yet after years of well-intentioned work and millions of dollars spent on combatting the scourge, the details and extent of the problem remain murky. No national statistics, for instance, document the number of surgical-wound infections like Ms. Smith’s, one of the most common types of hospital-acquired pathogens. A federal...