AUGUSTA, GEORGIA—Doctors say a young woman battling a flesh-decaying bacteria she contracted after a zip line accident will lose her hands and remaining foot to the infection.

But Aimee Copeland’s father says the 24-year-old college student is improving.

Andy Copeland told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday his daughter is “coherent and alert.” Doctors treating her at an Augusta hospital say there is no indication of any brain damage and her lungs are slowly healing, but her hands and remaining foot will have to be amputated.

Copeland cut her leg last week after falling from a homemade zip line.

The University of West Georgia graduate psychology student was diagnosed Friday with necrotizing faciitis, a flesh-eating bacteria that destroys human tissue. She lost most of her right leg to the infection.