Spanish Fort, Ala. — After boating with her friends on Labor Day along Alabama’s Gulf coast, Summerlin Skipworth’s life changed dramatically.
The 30-year-old single mom slipped and cut her feet near a boat launch in Orange Beach, Alabama, exposing her to a flesh-eating bacteria that could have killed her.
Skipworth shared her story with CBS News, hoping it can help someone.
“I never thought this is how I’d get my five minutes of fame,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Trust your body. I know it’s a pain to go to the doctor’s and everything, but it could save your life.”
Summerlin Skipworth and a close friend boating in Orange Beach, Ala., on Labor Day weekend, just before she caught Vibrio. / Credit: Summerlin Skipworth
Speaking at her home in Spanish Fort, about an hour north of Orange Beach, Skipworth described how the night she was injured, one of her feet was throbbing in pain. She said the swelling grew larger as the night passed.
“I thought it was broken,” she said. “I didn’t think of infection or anything.”
The next day, she tried to go to work, but said a coworker advised her to see a doctor after noticing the cut was oozing a white discharge.
“My foot was like a big blister,” Skipworth said. “My foot was red and it was like coming to a ball … but it was going like across the whole top of my foot.”
The infection had spread up past her ankle. Not long after that, she was taken in for emergency surgery to wash the bacteria out from underneath the skin on her foot and ankle.
That was when she had a culture test, which found she had contracted Vibrio vulnificus, a bacteria found in some warm coastal waters.
Now she’s hooked up to a mobile IV antibiotic fluid treatment that she carries with her like a purse every day — only removing it for showers. She also takes three oral antibiotic pills, at least one of which she’ll have to take every day for the next year.
“I’m just thankful to be here,” Skipworth said.
Vibrio vulnificus is one of about a dozen species of the bacteria Vibrio, which can cause an illness called vibriosis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there are about 80,000 cases of vibriosis in the U.S. every year.
About one in five people die after getting infected with the Vibrio vulnificus species specifically, according to the CDC.
A growing number of Vibrio infections were seen this summer across the Gulf and East Coasts — and as far north as Massachusetts. Health officials in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana reported at least 59 cases across those three states over the summer. Five people have died in Louisiana, and one case in Mississippi was fatal.
While many people catch the bacteria from contact with contaminated water, the CDC says about half of the cases each year are contracted by eating contaminated seafood. Two of the people who died in Louisiana this year had eaten contaminated raw oysters, the state health department said.
Microbiologists say Vibrio is more prolific in the warmer months, typically until November, when the bacteria have a better environment to thrive, and that one reason for higher Vibrio infection cases this summer compared to previous years may be because of warmer ocean temperatures.
While doctors say immunocompromised people are most at-risk, Skipworth said she’s never had health problems before.
“I work out, I try to eat clean,” she said.
She hopes her story will warn others to be careful.
“There’s a lot of stuff that I felt like I took for granted … to go to work, walk my dog, take care of my son. I mean, it is a lot more appreciation that’s come with this than anything,” Skipworth said.
She added, “I thank God that I’m here, you know, to be able to even tell the tale, and not give up on myself.”
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