About 80,000 people get some form of vibriosis every year, usually from eating raw or undercooked shellfish, according to the Centers for Disease Control. For most, the worst symptoms are diarrhea and vomiting.
Michael Funk was one of the unlucky ones.
On Sept. 11, he was in Ocean City, Md., cleaning his crab pots as he and his wife prepared to return to their winter home in Phoenix, according to the Daily Times of Salisbury, Md.
But somewhere in the murky water lurked a strand of flesh-eating bacteria, Vibrio vulnificus. It came in contact with a cut on his leg, and within hours felt ill.
The infection moved rapidly. Days later, ulcerated and full of lesions, it was “like something out of a horror movie,” his wife, Marcia, told the newspaper. The flesh-eating bacteria was in his bloodstream.