PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — Leann Thibodeau thought nothing of it at first: A pinhole-sized cut on her foot appeared only to be a minor injury.
It stayed the same for a couple of days but thereafter, her foot became red and swollen. Thibodeau told WINK-TV she even joked with coworkers about getting flesh-eating bacteria.
“I didn’t believe that I had flesh-eating bacteria,” she told the TV station. “I am like, ‘My foot is just infected. No big deal.'”
Thibodeau said she visits Boca Grande, located in southwest Florida on the Gulf of Mexico, every weekend. During the last weekend in June, however, she went someplace new and headed north to Manasota Beach.
The injury happened at the beach, only to become much more concerning by the Fourth of July when Thibodeau couldn't walk, WINK reported. A doctor at Bayfront Health Port Charlotte diagnosed Thibodeau with group A Streptococcus, she says.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the bacteria are the most common cause of the flesh-eating infection-- otherwise known as necrotizing fasciitis.
“I could not believe that this had happened to me,” she said.
Thibodeau's story isn't the first: People who visited several Florida beaches in recent weeks, from Coquina Beach to Destin and Santa Rosa Beach, either became ill or died from contracting the suspected bacteria.
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