Woman Loses Her Leg From Bacteria In The Gulf

HERNANDO COUNTY, Fla. – “I don’t think I’ll ever go swimming again,” Amber Castleman said through the phone. She spoke to us Wednesday night from a hospital in Naples. Her 84-year-old mother, Margaret Freiwald, is there in surgical intensive care.

“You always hear something like this happening to other people, but you never really pay attention because it really never hits home,” Castleman said.

This time it did.

Until a week and a half ago, Castleman says her mom was quite healthy. She says her only ailment was arthritis.

But on July 20, a group of them from the Fraternal Order of Eagles went swimming in the Gulf between the Hernando and Bayport channels. Freiwald scraped her shin getting back on a boat.

At first, everything seemed okay. The next morning, Freiwald and her boyfriend left for a vacation to Naples. But by nighttime, her leg started to look infected. Three days later, on Wednesday, doctors had to amputate it above the knee.

 

Source: ABC Action News