A woman in California had to undergo emergency surgery to have all four of her limbs removed after consuming bad tilapia. The fish she consumed had traces of a bacteria known as vibrio vulnificus, which is notorious for causing fatalities, especially in individuals with compromised immune systems.
From The New York Post:
Laura Barajas, 40, underwent the life-saving surgery on Thursday after a months-long stay in the hospital.
“It’s just been really heavy on all of us. It’s terrible. This could’ve happened to any of us,” Barajas’ friend Anna Messina told KRON.
Messina said Barajas, who has a 6-year-old son, became sick days after eating the fish that she had purchased at a local market in San Jose and made for herself at home.
“She almost lost her life. She was on a respirator,” Messina said.
“They put her into a medically induced coma. Her fingers were black, her feet were black, her bottom lip was black. She had complete sepsis and her kidneys were failing,” she added.
Messina says Barajas was infected with Vibrio vulnificus, a potentially fatal bacterium found in raw seafood and seawater.
“The ways you can get infected with this bacteria are, one, you can eat something that’s contaminated with it [and] the other way is by having a cut or tattoo exposed to water in which this bug lives,” UCSF infectious disease expert Dr. Natasha Spottiswoode told KRON.
Good Lord, this is horrifying.
While it's amazing that doctors were able to save this woman's life, her entire world has completely changed, all from eating a piece of fish.
I don't know about you, but I'm ready to throw out every last piece of fish I have sitting in my freezer at the moment.
