Florida Mom Reveals How a Tiny Cut on Her Leg Nearly Killed Her

A Florida mom was warned by doctors that she might die or lose her leg after contracting a flesh-eating bacteria following a swim near a local beach.

On July 27, Genevieve Gallagher, 49, of Pensacola, went for a swim with her 7-year-old daughter, Mila, in Santa Rosa Sound off Pensacola Beach, per the Pensacola News Journal newspaper.

Gallagher and her husband, Dana, had gone boating behind the Pensacola Beach Boardwalk, before she and her daughter decided to go for a dip near Quietwater Beach, the outlet noted.

Three days later, on July 30, Gallagher started to experience symptoms of an infection, including sweats. Her leg also swelled and bubbled with blisters, so she was rushed into surgery that afternoon, and she learned she’d contracted the flesh-eating bacteria known as Vibrio vulnificus.

Gallagher believes she caught the infection through a small cut on her left leg.

Per the Cleveland Clinic, “Vibrio vulnificus is a type of bacteria that can cause a fatal infection. You get it from eating uncooked or undercooked shellfish or when seawater enters a wound.” 

“Symptoms get worse quickly. They include fever, low blood pressure and painful blisters,” the site adds.

Gallagher, who has been undergoing treatment at UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville, had to have most of the tissue on her left leg below the knee removed to try and stop the bacteria from spreading, the Pensacola News Journal reported.

“I thought I had an infection, but never did I think I had a flesh-eating bacterium,” she told the paper. “[There are] no antibiotics that they can give you to stop it. They just have to get out any infected skin and tissue. They’ve got to get it off your body.”

Gallagher was intubated for nearly a week after going into septic shock amid the infection. Medical staff repeatedly scrubbed and cleaned out her leg in an attempt to remove any dying tissue. Doctors ended up warning the family that Gallagher might lose her leg or even her life to the illness, the paper noted.

“They were finally able to get me stable enough to wake me up, thank God,” Gallagher told the outlet, adding of her daughter, “Mila saw me in the hospital and said, ‘I wish this happened to me and not you,’ and I started crying. That broke my heart.” 

“I was like ‘Mila, no, I’m so glad it didn’t happen to you. Your little body could not have taken all this that’s going on,’” she added.

Gallagher, who has had multiple surgeries, shared, “Just looking at my leg, it doesn’t even look like my leg anymore. It looks deformed right now. The pain is unbelievable. It feels like somebody took gasoline, poured it on my leg, and lit my leg on fire. That’s what it feels like.”

According to the Florida Department of Health, there have been 23 cases of Vibrio vulnificus in the state this year so far, and five deaths.

“Vibrio vulnificus is a bacterium that normally lives in warm seawater and is part of a group of vibrios that are called ‘halophilic’ because they require salt,” the government agency said on its website, adding that “infections are rare.”

The site stated, “Water and wounds do not mix. Do not enter the water if you have fresh cuts or scrapes.”

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Gallagher said that on the day she and her daughter went swimming, she attempted to cover her cut with a waterproof bandage, per the Pensacola News Journal. She insisted that if she’d known the risks, she would never have entered the water.

“When it’s so hot and that water is not moving, that bacteria is just growing and growing and growing,” she told the newspaper. “There are no signs out there saying, ‘Hey, this water has a high infection rate for vibrio,’ or, ‘Hey, this water tested positive,’ like they do in Panama City, because I’m sure if they did, people would not be swimming over there.”

UF Health and Escambia County Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger, who represents Pensacola Beach, didn’t immediately respond when contacted by PEOPLE for comment. PEOPLE has also reached out to Gallagher for an update on her recovery.