By Scott Buttram and Gary Lloyd
BIRMINGHAM — A man is being treated at UAB after contracting a flesh-eating bacteria following a baseball game in Trussville, according to a report from al.com.
Necrotizing fasciitis is a serious bacterial skin infection that spreads quickly and kills the body’s soft tissue, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accurate diagnosis, prompt treatment with antibiotics through a vein, and surgery are important to stopping this infection that can become life-threatening in a short amount of time.
The man’s mother-in-law, Margaret Limbaugh, told al.com that he had undergone two surgeries to remove infected tissue this week. She said a softball-sized area of tissue was removed in the first surgery.
Limbaugh told al.com that her son-in-law may have contracted the bacteria when he slid into base during a baseball game in Trussville.
Zach Manning of Trussville Parks and Recreation said the city doesn’t currently host an adult baseball league, but there is a men’s recreational softball league that plays in the city.
Park officials had not been informed of the situation and were not aware of any issues involving the league, according to Manning.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to assist the man affected and his family. The page’s creator, Jennifer Wesson, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
According to the page, the man’s name is Anthony Smothers, and on April 8 he and his wife noticed a “strawberry” on his right calf that was growing instead of healing from a softball game that Smothers had played in a few days before. That night, it showed a purplish area under the skin.
The couple drove to DCH in Tuscaloosa the next day, and Smothers was admitted for IV antibiotic treatment for a staph infection. The doctors began the treatment marked an area around the infection and decided to drain it. By April 10 it seemed to be working, but that night the area around the drain site started to turn purple and the red infection was creeping up to the circle the doctors had marked.
By April 12 an infectious disease surgeon decided that surgery to drain and remove the dead tissue was the best option. On April 14, the doctors checked Smothers and told his wife that he needed to have another surgery to remove the dead tissue.
Doctors thought the infection could have been from a spider bite but later discovered it was necrotizing fasciitis. Smothers was then transferred to UAB.
Paul Goepfert, a professor of infectious diseases at the UAB School of Medicine and the director of the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic, said necrotizing fasciitis is “extremely rare.”
“Fortunately, most people don’t get this,” Goepfert said. “You generally have to have some sort of injury to your tissue and even then you have to have something else happen. The bacteria has to get there and establish itself and then take hold. If it does, you can get this.”
Goepfert said anyone who gets a cut could be at risk for getting a bacterial infection. Goepfert did say, however, that acquiring necrotizing fasciitis is a 1/1,000 or 1/10,000 chance.
Generally speaking, Goepfert said necrotizing fasciitis can be corrected by antibiotics or plastic surgery, if amputation is required.
“Anywhere from just treating with antibiotics to death (can be a result),” Goepfert said.
He said preventing this from happening once you get a cut is to clean the wound as soon and as thorough as possible. Any injury that gets worse after a day or two should be checked out by a doctor.
“There’s not much else you can do,” he said. “It shouldn’t prevent people from going out and having fun, and playing and playing softball, because that’s another healthy thing to do. It’s all sort of a risk-benefit thing.”