Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Flesh-Eating Bacteria Updates

Milledgeville Man Continues To Fight Flesh-Eating Bacteria

12:58 PM, May 29, 2012Paul Bales, the Milledgeville man fighting the flesh-eating bacteria could face more surgery. 13WMAZ talked to Mike Bales, Paul's son, on Tuesday morning about his father's condition.
On Wednesday, Mike Bales says doctors removed part of his dad's left leg, just below the knee. Bales says the doctors are focused on getting the bacteria out.
"The surgeon came in this past weekend to observe the leg, change the dressing," said Mike Bales in a phone interview. "They still see signs of redness and infection around the knee area, and possibly more amputation because there's even more infection."
Bales said.. 
Video
http://www.13wmaz.com/news/health/article/183287/193/Milledgeville-Man-Continues-To-Fight-Flesh-Eating-Bacteria

Family counters flesh-eating bacteria with faith

By Elizabeth Cohen, Senior Medical Correspondent
updated 2:41 PM EDT, Tue May 29, 2012(CNN) -- In the four weeks since his daughter cut her leg in the Tallapoosa River, Andy Copeland has experienced several low points. But nothing was as desperate as a moment in the surgical waiting room on May 4.
A doctor called from the operating room at Tanner Medical Center in Carrollton, Georgia, where his daughter was having surgery.
"When your daughter arrived, I was trying to save her leg," the doctor said. "Now I'm trying to save her life.'"
Copeland felt his legs turn to rubber. His head went light. A hospital volunteer put a chair beneath him that caught him from falling. His wife, Donna, came into the room, and Andy repeated what the surgeon had told him.
"We cried and cried in each other's arms," Copeland recalled. "We sobbed uncontrollably for 10 minutes. Then the chaplain came in and I grabbed his hand and....


Expert: 'Bacteria shouldn't be feared, but it should be respected'
by Winston Jones/Times-Georgian
 
Microbiologist Amy Horneman often calls the Aeromonas bacteria, “the Rodney Dangerfield of bacteria.”

The late stand-up comedian Dangerfield’s famous line was, “I don’t get no respect.”

Horneman said people shouldn’t live in fear of Aeromonas, but it does deserve their respect. She should know since she is considered the international expert on the germ.

It was a strain of this bacteria, Aeromonas hydrophila, that caused the flesh eating disease, necrotizing faciitis, that nearly killed 24-year-old University of West Georgia psychology graduate student Aimee Copeland. She received a cut from a May 1 zip line accident in the Little Tallapoosa River. Copeland is still recovering in the JMS Burn Center of Doctors Hospital in Augusta.

While Horneman won’t speak specifically on the Copeland case, she has become in extreme demand in recent weeks due to the Copeland infection making worldwide news. Horneman has been on many radio and TV networks and has been quoted worldwide in many publications. When the Times-Georgian got in contact with her last Thursday, she was preparing to appear on an outdoors network to warn fishermen of the dangers of Aeromonas infection from fishhook wounds.
Speaking from her...
http://www.times-georgian.com/view/full_story/18749976/article-Expert---Bacteria-shouldn-t-be-feared--but-it-should-be-respected-?instance=west_ga_news

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