Jesse Brown, an 11-year-old boy from Winter Park in Florida, died from a flesh-eating bacterial infection after he sprained his ankle, his family said.
He twisted his ankle and perhaps scratched it while using a treadmill last month, his cousin Megan Brown told Fox 35.
A few days later, the boy’s family noticed that his leg was covered in “splotchy, purply, red, almost like bruises, and his arms and legs were very cold, but his body was very, very hot,” Brown said.
The took him to the ER and it turned out to be group A strep that may have festered in his injury and turned into a flesh-eating bacteria.
“They had to bring him back a couple of times because his heart was doing crazy things. His organs were starting to shut down and they had to intubate him,” Brown said.
“In my mind, I was in complete disbelief. I was like, ‘he’ll be fine. This could never happen to our family,'” Megan Brown said.
“They said that because he rolled his ankle, that that’s likely where the infection attacked it,” his cousin said.
“For this to kill him in just a matter of days was crazy,” she added.
On a memorial fund page for the boy, staff from Lakemont Elementary School in Orange County said: “While Jesse was a miracle to his parents and family, he was also a true blessing to his Lakemont family. Jesse was kind and compassionate, looked out for others, adventurous, and truly an amazing friend and classmate.”
“If there was more awareness, maybe we could have caught it earlier when we noticed he had a fever,” Brown said.
Dr. Alan Cross, who is an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Maryland Medical Center and a professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, provided some advice on awareness. Cross says Group-A strep is the bacteria that causes strep throat. There is a marked increase in cases of Strep-A infections—especially in kids. He sees these infections in kids and adults, from scrapes to large wounds.
“If group A strep forms there, it can cause this very rapid infection, and the reason for that is that it makes a toxin,” Cross said.
“Adults who had trauma through auto accidents, and injuries, were quite similar to what this boy had, except they were adults. And they also have these soft tissues in infections that got surgical treatment on top of prompt antibiotic therapy,” Cross said.
The group A strep infection can lead to secondary infections. Cross advises keeping all wounds clean and identifying problems quickly.
