26-05-2025
Warning to millions of beachgoers over flesh-eating bacteria as victims suffer amputations
For Richard Empson and Cornell Arceneaux of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, what began as a routine day near the water became a fight for their lives.
Their stories are a chilling warning as the fast-moving killer Vibrio vulnificus, a flesh-eating bacteria, becomes an increasing threat along America's beaches and shores, from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast.
Empson was enjoying a relaxed family vacation in Bay St Louis, Mississippi, in the summer of 2016 when his nightmare began.
After wading in warm waters for hours while fishing, the bacteria entered his body through microscopic breaks in his skin.
What started as a carefree afternoon ended with a frantic rush to intensive care. Doctors gave him a medication with just a 20 percent chance of working.
When it failed, they delivered a brutal ultimatum: lose his leg, or lose his life.
Meanwhile, Arceneaux has survived three separate brushes with Vibrio — twice from handling raw shellfish with open cuts on his hand and arm, and once from eating raw oysters.
In one instance, pain and swelling set in within two hours.
By the time he reached the hospital, blisters had formed and emergency surgery was underway to save his limbs.
He lived, but his arms now bear deep scars stretching to his shoulders.
Often contracted through small cuts or scrapes, Vibrio vulnificus hijacks the bloodstream and unleashes a cascade of flesh-destroying toxins.
It starves tissues of blood and oxygen, turning skin black and muscle into sludge.
If not caught in time, a minor wound can spiral into a life-threatening emergency — sometimes in less than 24 hours.
About 150 to 200 V. vulnificus infections are reported to the CDC each year and about one in five die.
The CDC has not issued an annual report on Vibrio in the U.S. since 2019, when 2,685 infections were recorded—but trends suggest cases are rising.
A sweeping review of CDC data from 1988 to 2018 revealed that Vibrio wound infections on the East Coast surged eightfold, from about 10 to over 80 cases per year.
Rising ocean temperatures are making colder regions like Alaska, the Baltic Sea, and Chile more hospitable to Vibrio, with scientists flagging them as potential hotspots. Paired with high seafood demand, coastal recreation, and climate change, experts warn of a sharp rise in infections—and deaths—in the near future.
When Empson got back to his family's beach house, he began experiencing early signs of vibriosis – swelling and pain in his foot, fever, chills, and blisters.
He tried to leave town to return to a hospital near his home in Baton Rouge, but he and his family realized they wouldn't make it. They went to a hospital near their stay in Waveland Beach, Mississippi.
'We got to the emergency room in Bay St. Louis, and when they found out we'd been at the beach, they were calling for a surgeon, and they immediately moved me into intensive care,' Empson told The Advocate.
Doctors then attempted to stop the infection in its tracks, but Empson was told the chance of it working was about 20 percent.
'I told him to take the leg, that I could learn to walk again,' he said.
His niece Angelle Daggett said: 'When he went in for surgery, his blood pressure [was so high] he should not have been alive.'
Empson spent weeks in rehabilitation therapy to relearn how to walk. He needs two canes to get around, do yard work, and fish.
These days, he does not wade into the water, staying on the bank instead.
Vibrio can enter the body through the smallest break in the skin, even a papercut.
It launches a rapid attack, releasing toxins that invade and kill tissues, disabling immune cells that rush to the body's defense, and invading the bloodstream, raising the odds of an infection leading to sepsis.
Within about 48 hours of exposure to the bacteria, toxic enzymes ravage tissue under the skin, liquifying muscle and fat, and leaving the skin blackened and rotten.
Arcenaux has been infected with the bacteria on two different occasions through cuts on his arms.
The first time he was infected, he got a small cut on his arm while about five dozen crabs, having reached into a water-filled bucket to lift one out one by one.
'That was on a Thursday, and within 24 hours I was on the way to the hospital and had surgery within two hours,' he said.
Arcenaux was able to avoid amputation. Doctors typically administer high doses of antibiotics intravenously and can sometimes halt the infection's spread by removing dead tissue on the arm.
'It was 36 hours at the Baton Rouge General for the next one, he said. 'To survive, I'm lucky twice, very lucky.
Vibrio requires warm water to grow and proliferate, making Gulf Coast beaches prime breeding grounds.
Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (LDHH) data indicates there are about 10 to 15 cases per year in the state and has not recorded any steady increases in recent years, though cases fluctate.
Most get the infection from skin contact with seawater (80 percent) or consumption of raw seafood (20 percent).
Laura Barajas, a 40-year-old mother from San Jose, underwent quadruple amputation after contracting a severe Vibrio vulnificus infection from undercooked tilapia she prepared at home in July.
The bacteria — which the CDC warns can cause life-threatening sepsis — left her in a medically induced coma with failing kidneys and necrotic limbs.
Barajas, who has a six-year-old son, survived but faces a lifelong disability. Her friend Anna Messina shared that Barajas' 'fingers were black, her feet were black her bottom lip was black' and her kidneys were failing as the infection ravaged her body.
'They put her into a medically induced coma,' Messina added.
