A Tampa man is fighting to recover after contracting a rare flesh-eating bacterial infection during a New Year’s trip to the Bahamas, leaving him hospitalized in South Florida with organ failure and facing months of rehabilitation, according to his family and a GoFundMe campaign created to help cover mounting medical expenses.
As of early February, Brian Roush, 62, was receiving treatment at Broward Health in Fort Lauderdale after becoming critically ill shortly after returning from vacation, his daughter Brittany Roush told Tampa television station WFLA. A GoFundMe page created by his daughter said he went into severe septic shock, was intubated and placed on a ventilator within hours of arriving back in Florida, where doctors suspected necrotizing fasciitis, commonly known as flesh-eating bacteria.
According to the GoFundMe page, Brian Roush scraped his ankle during the trip but continued enjoying typical vacation activities, including swimming with pigs and visiting waterslides, before suddenly becoming violently ill on the way home Jan. 3. Doctors rushed him into emergency surgery to remove infected tissue, a decision his family said ultimately saved his life.
Multiple organ failure and life-saving surgeries
Over the following days, sepsis caused Brian Roush’s liver, kidneys and lungs to fail while he remained in an induced coma on life support, according to the GoFundMe page. Surgeons later removed most of the flesh from his ankle to his lower calf after it became gangrenous, then performed a muscle flap and skin graft using a muscle from his back and skin from his thigh…