Fort Mitchell woman hospitalized in Columbus for flesh-eating bacteria infection

A 24-year-old Fort Mitchell, Ala., woman has been hospitalized at Columbus Regional for a flesh-eating bacteria infection since Sept. 30, according to her mother.

Rachelle Woods said her daughter, LaKalia, is currently at the Columbus Specialty Hospital in a unit for wound patients after having multiple surgeries.

“What we thought was a boil on her buttocks actually turned into the disease,” the mother said. “It started around the middle of September.”

What they originally thought was a pimple, just kept getting bigger, raising concern.

“And so we took her to urgent care in Phenix City,” said Woods. “They gave her antibiotics for about eight days, but this thing just continued to grow so fast.”

Woods said it turned out LaKalia was infected with necrotizing fasciitis, the same flesh-eating bacteria that attacked Aimee Copeland, an Atlanta young woman who lost a leg and her two hands to the disease in 2012.

On Thursday, Copeland was the keynote speaker at a United Way Power of the Purse luncheon at the St. Luke Ministry Center, where Woods, her husband and their older daughter had an opportunity to meet her. Woods said she just happened to see an article in the Ledger-Enquirer about Copeland coming to town as the keynote speaker. She contacted the United Way before the event and made arrangements for the meeting.

“She is so inspirational,” said Woods, following the event. “To personally hear Aimee’s story, see the strength in this young lady and the encouragement that she gives to everybody — people like us. She just amazes me.”

Woods said LaKalia has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Marshall University in Huntington, W.V. She was working at a Verizon call center in Opelika when the disease struck.

While at work, LaKalia discovered that the boil had busted open, her mother said. She was in so much pain that the family decided to take her to an emergency room. The incident occurred on Sept. 30, her mother’s 55th birthday.

“When I got there, they said that she was going into to septic shock and this was not even a boil,” Woods said of the trip to the emergency room. “Starting that Sunday morning, the first of October to the 13th of October, she had to go into surgery 11 times for them to remove the infectious areas throughout her body and to continue to pack and repack that area.”

On the very first day, the doctor handling the case told her, “She’s 24, but this is very serious. It could easily take her to Heaven.”

“And I thought, ‘Well, God, what can I do?’” Woods said. “All I could do was fall on my knees and pray.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions necrotizing fasciitis, pronounced (neck-ro-tie-zing Fas-e-i-tis), is “a serious bacterial skin infection that spreads quickly and kills the body’s soft tissue.”

“Unfortunately, necrotizing fasciitis can be deadly in a very short amount of time,” read a description on the CDC website. “Accurate diagnosis, prompt antibiotic treatment (medicine that kills bacteria in the body), and surgery are important to stopping this infection.”

Although a rare disease, it can be caused by more than one type of bacterium, according to the information.

“Public health experts consider group A strep to be the most common cause of necrotizing fasciitis,” it read. “Infections from group A strep bacteria are generally mild and are easily treated. But in cases of necrotizing fasciitis, bacteria spread quickly once they enter the body. They infect the fascia, connective tissue that surround muscles, nerves, fat, and blood vessels. The infection also damages the tissues next to the fascia. Sometimes toxins (poisons) made by these bacteria destroy the tissue they infect, causing it to die. When this happens, the infection is very serious and those infected can lose limbs or die.”

Woods said the surgeries went well, and LaKalia is doing better. On Tuesday, doctors transferred her to the Columbus Specialty Hospital, now part of Midtown Medical Center, for wound care, she said.

Fortunately, LaKalia lost no limbs, but she may have to endure skin-graft surgery in the future.

“They feel that they caught it in enough time,” said her mother. “And we pray that it never spreads again.”

Woods said she and her husband, Lafonzo, are retired from the military. They both now work in criminal investigations. He’s employed at Fort Benning and she works at the Gillem Enclave in Forest Park, Ga.

The family has no idea how LaKalia got the flesh-eating bacteria infection, her mother said. And sometimes her daughter wonders why it had to happen to her.

Woods said she tells her everything happens for a reason and the family is still blessed.

“We don’t know where or how it started, we just know this journey is ours,” she said. “We’re the ones chosen by God, and we’re in it to win it.”

This story was originally published November 3, 2017 at 11:28 AM with the headline "Fort Mitchell woman hospitalized in Columbus for flesh-eating bacteria infection."