How does a healthy 12-year-old boy become suddenly ill with a flesh eating bacteria? Now, after contracting the deadly bacteria, doctors are trying to save his life.
It has been a nightmare for the parents of Dakarai Moore, Jr. They say he has always been healthy, been active and into sports, but then this mysterious bacteria seemed to come out of nowhere.
“My son was complaining just saying his legs were hurting,” said Charmaine Norman, his mother. “There was a really tight feeling and his knees were kind of puffy.”
Dakarai also had a fever and was developing a greenish-colored rash on the bottom of his feet. That’s when his mother rushed him to Detroit Children’s Hospital of Michigan.
“The next thing I know, like 15 doctors came in,” she said.
Together Dakarai’s parents watched the bacteria eat away at his body, working its way up the legs to his torso. Days later, they say he was diagnosed with Necrotizing Fasciitis, commonly known as flesh eating disease – something rarely found in children.
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Flesh-eating disease can occur when bacteria enter the body through a break in the skin. The most common way of getting necrotizing fasciitis is when the bacteria enter through a cut, scrape, burn, insect bite, or puncture wound. People with a weakened immune system can be at greater risk of developing this condition.
The condition spreads quickly. Symptoms include blisters, fever, fatigue, and pain worse than a person would expect based on the wound’s appearance.
“It’s just crazy how one day your child is like this then the next day, this happens,” she said.
Most of Dakarai’s left leg could not be saved.
The boy’s battle isn’t over, though his parents said doctors believe they have slowed the infection down and…
…may have stopped it from spreading further. A fund to help support the family’s medical expenses will be set up as well.
For more information about this and other diseases, click here.