12-year-old contracts flesh-eating bacteria on Florida beach

Author: CBS
Published: Updated:
Wound from the beach. (Credit: CBS via Michelle Brown)
Wound from the beach. (Credit: CBS via Michelle Brown)

A 12-year-old Indiana girl is facing surgeries and months of physical therapy after contracting a flesh-eating bacteria from a Florida Panhandle beach.

CBS affiliate station WKRG reported the Brown family vacationed in Destin and went to the beach the weekend of June 7. Mom Michelle Brown told WKRG that daughter Kylei woke up a couple of days later and said she felt sick.

Brown said her daughter had pain in her calf on her right leg, and the next day the pain was so great it kept Kylei from walking.

Back in Indianapolis, a doctor told Brown to take her daughter to the emergency room. During an MRI, Brown said doctors noticed an infection was “spreading and running pretty rapidly” through Kylei’s body.

WKRG said doctors saw a pocket of infection behind Kylei’s knee and diagnosed her with necrotizing fasciitis, a rare flesh-eating disease.

Brown posted on Facebook that she believes Kylei contracted the disease after scraping her big toe while visiting Pompano Beach, which is a beach in Destin.

Brown said Kylei is home now, but still faces more surgeries, treatments and physical therapy so she can walk again.

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