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Like a 'horror movie': He got an infection from the water in Ocean City, and within days he was dead https://t.co/yvksXPMg2s — DelmarvaNow! (@MyDelmarvaNow) October 21, 2016

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, 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, Maryland.

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 he began to feel 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.

“The bacterium can invade the bloodstream, causing a severe and life-threatening illness with symptoms like fever, chills, decreased blood pressure (septic shock) and blistering skin lesions,” according to the Florida Department of Health’s vibriosis page. “Aggressive attention should be given to the wound site; for patients with wound infections, amputation of the infected limb is sometimes necessary.”

Doctors diagnosed vibriosis quickly, and Funk was flown to a shock trauma hospital in Baltimore, where doctors amputated his leg. But it was too late. He died Sept. 15, four days after cleaning out the crab pots.