Florida's Deadly Salt Water Bacteria
Despite the beauty of Florida's west coast from Clearwater to Naples, with its glistening white sand beaches, 80-degree ocean water and enough places for all to find their "place in paradise", there is a dark side to it all.
Most who visit there no nothing about it and even those who live there may not, but their ocean waters contain vibrio vulnificus, a deadly ocean bacteria. This bacteria lives in warm ocean water and in the same family as cholera. Once it enters the bloodstream, it is 50% fatal.
Statistics show that for this year, 10 people have died from it and another 25 have been infected. if not caught quickly, it spreads rapidly and kills. This bacteria usually is harmless until a swimmer or person enters the water with compromised immune systems or open, unhealed cuts or wounds. When the bacteria enters the blood stream symptoms like, chills, decreased blood pressure and blisters form. Another way to get this is to eat raw fish or oysters.
This is how Mr. Konietzky first noticed it. It looked like a small spider bite and his ankle. But within a day, the lesions spread in many other places. By the time he arrived and doctors began treatment with antibiotics, he was dead within 48 hrs.
