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Waterman Stanley Oliff blames pollution in the bay for the flesh-eating bacteria that nearly killed him.
Walter 'Johnny' Bowen was hospitalized for three days with a Vibrio infection. |
BY FRANK DELANO
The prick that morning from a catfish fin was nothing new to Stanley Oliff.
"It didn't even bleed. I paid no attention to it," said Oliff, who has worked most of his 72 years as a commercial fisherman in the Rappahannock River.
That night at his Richmond County home, Oliff said he noticed a little whelp on his hand where the catfish had stung him. By 11:30 p.m., he was shaking with a 104-degree fever and on his way to the emergency room in a Tappahannock hospital.
"The doctor knew what it was: Vibrio vulnificus, the bad kind," Oliff said.
The often-fatal infection from the bacteria in the water kept Oliff hooked up to intravenous antibiotics in the hospital for the next seven days. The treatments continued another six days at home.
"My arm swelled up as big as a football. The skin blistered and peeled off my forearm. The doctor told me five days in a row that I could die anytime. It was not a pleasant time," Oliff said.
Vibrio infections can also come from eating raw or undercooked seafood. "That's why I don't eat raw oysters anymore," said Oliff.
The dangers of the bacteria are highlighted in a new Chesapeake Bay Foundation report being released today about hazards to human health caused by the bay's polluted waters. The report demands that the EPA enforce laws to reduce pollution in the estuary to make it safe for swimming and fishing.
Incidents of Vibrio infections are rare. Only 33 occurrences were reported in Virginia in 2007. But infections from the flesh-eating bacteria are apparently much more commonplace among Northern Neck watermen.
Mark Allen, 44, of Coles Point in Westmoreland County scratched his left leg while crabbing on his boat in 2005. The next day, he said he felt like he was coming down with the flu and went to bed.
The day after that, he was in the hospital. He was in and out of hospitals for the next three months.
"My leg swelled up like a big watermelon. My entire lower leg was an open wound all the way to the bone. They were talking about amputating it at one point. I was damn near dead," he said.
Allen credits Dr. Robert Poole, now retired from Rappahannock General Hospital in Kilmarnock, with saving his life and his leg. Allen now walks with a limp, the result, he said, of the doctor scraping away dead flesh to battle the infection.
Allen said he is still paying off the $250,000 medical bill that Vibrio cost him. "I didn't have health insurance then, but I have it now," he said.
Douglas Jenkins of Warsaw, president of the Twin Rivers Watermen's Association, said he has had three bouts of Vibrio infections. The second one required eight months of antibiotic treatment and left the fingers curled on his hand. "I've never been able to straighten them out completely since then," he said.
Walter N. "Johnny" Bowen of Coles Point spent three days last week at Riverside Hospital in Tappahannock "getting, IVs, pills, shots and I don't know what all" for a Vibrio infection on his arm.
"My arm was way bigger than the big end of a baseball bat. I watched the skin rising up and busting open, oozing pus that looked like yellow ice cream," said Bowen, 75.
He said he wasn't sure how the infection got into his arm. It might have come from the sharp end of a crab shell, he said.
Like the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, all of the watermen believe that the poor water quality of the rivers and creeks in the Chesapeake region has contributed to an increase in Vibrio infections.
Dr. Lloyd T. Griffith believes it, too. A general practitioner at Mount Holly for 49 years, Griffith has seen many patients from nearby fishing villages.
"In the old days, we saw intensely, rapidly reproducing staph and strep infections that were usually caused by injuries. Sulfur drugs and penicillin were usually very effective in treating them," said Griffith.
"This more exotic stuff like Vibrio just wasn't there. The invasive infections we're seeing now are a mark of the very septic quality of our tidewaters," he said.
The Virginia Department of Health states, "People who swim or fish in the Chesapeake Bay have little risk of contracting Vibrio vulnificus."
The doctor disagrees.
"The Chesapeake Bay is a living culture of just about any microorganism or pathogen," Griffith said. "It's a veritable biological soup of viruses, bacteria and protozoa. The waters pose a very significant health risk.
"I've been on this water a very long time, but now it's a tidal sewer. It's not a place I want to stick my foot."
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other environmental groups believe massive doses of money and regulation will be needed to clean up the bay. But the doctor and Stanley Oliff believe it's too late.
"The bay's condition is terminal," said Griffith.
"The problem has gotten too big to control. It's out of hand," Oliff said. "There's so much runoff from everything, everywhere--chemicals, fertilizers, sludge, sewage, you name it, it all ends up in the water.
"There's just too much population on the waterfront. They'll never be able to control it."
Oliff still catches catfish in pound nets in the Rappahannock. But now he keeps a medicine chest on his boat. In it are hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, sterile swabs and three kinds of antibiotics.
The medicines are "to drench down good any little scratch or cut that anybody gets on the water."
"You can't be too careful with Vibrio," he said.
Frank Delano: 804/761-4300
Email: fpdelano@gmail.com
