GALVESTON — Steve Gilpatrick finally got some good news Wednesday.
Galveston doctors told the Nacogdoches man he would survive deadly bacteria that infected him in the Gulf and that he likely would keep the leg that the bug contaminated.
“He’s still very sick,” his wife, Linda Gilpatrick, said Wednesday in an interview from the University of Texas Medical Branch’s John Sealy Hospital.
It was the first glimmer of hope after a terrifying week for the Gilpatricks.
On July 8, Steve Gilpatrick briefly went fishing in ankle-deep water at Crystal Beach, his wife said.
Gilpatrick, 58, is diabetic. He had a sore on his leg that had almost healed.
He felt fine until the night of July 10, when he awoke with chills and a 103-degree fever. One of his legs was especially hot and it had turned purplish-red, said Linda Gilpatrick.
Medical branch doctors quickly determined that he had been infected with vibrio vulnificus, a bacterium found in all seawater. The same bug can make people sick when they eat raw oysters, especially in summertime.
Healthy people almost always are able to fight off a skin infection by vibrio vulnificus, but diabetics are doubly vulnerable, said Johnny Peterson, a medical branch microbiologist who studies the disease.
That’s because their poor circulation causes sores and also because elevated sugar in their blood aids in the virus’ reproduction.
By the time Gilpatrick was admitted to the hospital, his infection had reached the fascia, the connective tissue that surrounds bones and muscles throughout the body.
Once it reaches that point, vibrio vulnificus spreads rapidly, said David Herndon, director of the medical branch’s Blocker burn unit and chief of staff of the Shriners Hospital for Children.
It can infect the blood and cause organs to shut down, after which it is fatal in 50 percent of cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Burn doctors quickly started the first of three surgeries to remove Gilpatrick’s infected flesh, his wife said.
But, until Wednesday, the doctors couldn’t say whether they would have to amputate his infected leg or whether he would survive at all.
Now, much of the leg has been stripped to the bone and Gilpatrick faces at least a month of skin grafts and treatment with antibiotics, his wife said.
She said she was speaking to the media about her husband’s condition because she wanted to get the word out — people with diabetes or compromised immune systems should be careful at the beach.
“Pay attention before you get in the water,” she said.
