"Infections are still relatively uncommon, but the costs of infection are severe"
"One day last July, Vernon Spear scratched his forearm on a crab pot as he pulled it out of the Choptank River from his pier in Cambridge, MD. He put hydrogen peroxide on the tiny cuts, thinking that would disinfect them.
That night, his forearm swelled up, and he spiked a high fever. The next morning, the fever was gone, and his arm didn’t hurt. But the wounds were bright red and oozing. Alarmed, his wife and son insisted that Spear go to the local emergency room.
The physician who saw him there immediately recognized that Spear was in imminent danger of losing his arm — and maybe his life — from a Vibrio vulnificus infection.
He was rushed by helicopter to the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, which specializes in treating severe injuries and critical illnesses."
Timothy B. Wheeler reports for the Bay Journal July 21, 2026.
