Mike Walton thinks it was getting pricked by a fish hook — something that’s happened to him plenty of times before — that led to him contracting the rare and sometime deadly “flesh-eating” bacteria that nearly caused him to lose his arm.
The Ozona Fish Camp, in Walton’s hometown just south of Palm Harbor, is raising money to help him pay medical expenses for the ordeal that began after he got stuck with the fish hook April 13th while fishing about 20 miles offshore.
Walton told Tampa television station WFTS that, because of swelling, he went to a hospital that Saturday and received antibiotics for his hand which, by the next morning, had black bubbles on it.
“I had like little blisters starting to form on my hand and you could watch like sweat beads coming up on side of the hand, and then they just turned black,” Walton told the station.
At Tampa General Hospital, Walton was diagnosed with necrotizing fascitis, which is popularly referred to as flesh-eating bacteria — although it does not “eat” away at flesh. The rare, and potentially deadly, disease is usually treated by surgically removing the infected tissue.
“Doctors had informed him that it was spreading fast and he might loose his arm,” an Ozona Fish Camp representative wrote on the GoFundMe page set up for Walton.
Instead of amputating, doctors were able to operate and remove bacteria from the tissues of his arm and graft skin onto his arm and hand, WFTS reported.
Walton does masonry and won’t be able to work during his recovery, but says he’s fortunate to be alive.
“I got real lucky on this one,” he told the television station.
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