Flesh Eating Bacteria, Infection That Claimed Student Aimee Copeland’s Foot, Expained. The Flesh Eating Bacterial infection that cost Aimee Copeland her leg and hands is rare, but when it strikes, it can be deadly. A look at the lethal wrath of narcotizing fasciitic.
Aimee Copeland’s sister Paige and their father, Andy, speak about Aimee Copeland’s bacterial infection. She has already lost a leg.
Aimee Copeland, the 24-year-old Georgia student who has already lost her leg to necrotizing fasciitis, a rare, flesh-eating bacteria, is in critical condition and may also lose her hands and her other foot, according to news reports.
Flesh-eating bacteria a rare, aggressive infection that violently attacks the deepest layers of skin — has claimed a Georgia student’s leg, hands and remaining foot, thrusting her into the fight of her life and stirring nationwide interest about her ordeal.
The gash was deep enough to warrant medical attention — doctors closed the wound with 22 staples. But a dangerous bacteria — necrotizing fasciitis — found its way into the wound.
Within days, Copeland was back in the hospital in grave condition.
The scourge has led to the amputation of the West Georgia University student’s left leg. She is also expected to lose her hands and her remaining foot, according to the Associated Press. She is listed in critical condition at the Joseph M. Still Burn Center at Doctors Hospital in Augusta, Ga.
Necrotizing fasciitis is especially difficult to treat because it can be initially overlooked, experts said. The outside of the wound appears to be healing, but the devastation is taking place on a much deeper level, Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University Medical School told Reuters.
“This often is a very subtle infection initially,” he told Reuters. “These bacteria lodge in the deeper layers of the wound. The organism is deep in the tissues, and that’s where it’s causing its mischief.”
ABC News reported that Copeland showed evidence of an infection by the flesh-eating disease days after she went to a doctor for a deep cut she suffered from a homemade zip line fall.
Even though the doctors cleaned and closed the wound, it became infected, the Associated Press reported, most likely from bacteria at the zip line site.
“I couldn’t conceive of what it would be like for my daughter to lose her hands and the only other foot she has, as well, and that appears to be what is going to happen,” her father Andy Copeland told ABC affiliate WSB-TV. “The most important thing is my daughter is still alive.”