Mom checks in to hospital to give birth, comes out with no arms or legs..

[Guest junglesmacks]

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-flesh2106jan21,0,6625021.story?coll=orl-home-headlines

Claudia Mejia checked into the hospital April 28 and gave birth to a healthy baby boy. But then things went terribly wrong.

While in Orlando Regional South Seminole Hospital, she contracted a "flesh-eating" bacteria, and 12 days later doctors amputated her arms and her legs to save her life.

Now, Mejia, 24, of Sanford, has begun a legal battle. She is not asking for money. Right now, her lawyers are demanding that Orlando Regional Healthcare System Inc., which operates the Longwood hospital, release information about other victims of the same bacteria.

The company has refused, citing patient privacy.

"This is a very tragic situation," said Anne Peach, vice president of nursing for ORHS.

More than 200 cases of the aggressive streptococcal infection, which is resistant to antibiotics, are reported annually in Florida, according to the state Health Department.

Mejia was in her lawyer's office in Orlando on Friday with her husband Timothy B. Edwards, 33, son Jorge Mejia, 7, and baby Matthew, 8 months. While the baby sat squirming in her husband's lap, Mejia caressed the boy's head with what is left of her right arm.

"Everything has turned difficult for me," she said. She cannot change her son's diapers, she said. She cannot play with her children. She cannot bathe herself.

"I want to walk on my own," she said. "I want to take care of my kids."

Mejia said she does not know how she got the infection, but, according to the suit, it had to have been at South Seminole Hospital.

She gave birth to Matthew with no problems.

"They told me everything was normal," Mejia said.

Then a rash appeared, and she had severe pain in her belly.

The rash, the medical staff told her, was a possible allergic reaction to the sheets, and the stomach pain was normal for someone who had just given birth, her husband said.

Two days later, though, her condition turned critical. She was moved to intensive care. Soon after, doctors performed a hysterectomy.

A few days later, they transferred her to Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando.

According to her medical records, Mejia suffered not just the infection -- she went into shock, and her kidneys began to shut down. Gangrene set in.

Twelve days after she gave birth, doctors amputated her arms and legs.

"They gave her a choice of either dying or getting her limbs amputated," said her husband, a manager at Target in Lake Mary.

All told, Mejia was in the hospital more than three months. She is now at home in Sanford, where she has a remote-controlled wheelchair. She has artificial legs as well, but she has the strength to walk on them for only about 30 minutes, her husband said.

Mejia sued in state Circuit Court in Sanford on Jan. 13, asking a judge to order Orlando Regional to release records disclosing any other "adverse medical incidents" related to flesh-eating bacteria dating before her discharge Aug. 4.

"We want an answer to this: What happened to me?" Mejia said.

Her lawyer, E. Clay Parker, would not say whether he had already identified other people who contracted the infection at South Seminole.

In a letter last month, ORHS lawyer Jennings L. Hurt III said Mejia could not have records involving other patients.

Despite a constitutional amendment requiring their disclosure, Hurt wrote, state lawmakers have yet to pass enabling legislation.

Peach, ORHS's top nurse, said the hospital does not wish the family ill.

"We want her to continue to be well, for her baby to grow," she said. "Our staff has kept in contact with Ms. Mejia."

The baby did not contract the infection and is healthy, his parents said.

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I saw this on the news yesterday and it was horrible.. her husband seemed to be the most devestated.. made me teary, I'll admit..

[Guest dahzel]

OMG!!! how do you? what do you do? just WTF!?!?!?! that is one of the worst things i've heard in a while. i wonder how it's contracted and if it's contagious?

[Guest Slide On The Ice]

Oh my God...that is horrible beyond words. I've heard horror stories about the flesh eating bacteria before. Saw a guy on some talk show, can't remember which, who contracted something like that in his sinuses and they removed his face. Nose, eyes, cheeks, left a hole in his face. And this woman contracted it in the hospital, of all places? God, what a nightmare. I wonder what in the world is being done to find a cure for that disease? They said 200 people in florida a year catch it...what is to stop it from becoming a spreading epidemic right here? ???

[Guest mp3some]

Fuck!!!!

That is some scary shit. :-X

They should have the cia DHS and every fkn natl security and health agency looking into shit like this......... The ppl in the hospital are shady.....

Think Epidemic........ thats fkn scary. period.

[Guest Diabolique]

poor woman...poor 200+ people!

man...everyday I have another reason to be so happy to be all in one piece. :/ sometimes it amazes me when a person makes it to 70 or 80 without getting caught in some life altering tragedy.

[Guest junglesmacks]

..whats SUPER sketchy is that the hospital REFUSES to release any information about how she contracted it or anything! The lawyers are waving the right of patients to know in front of their face and they are pretty much saying.. too bad.. you'll have to sue us.. with absolutely no remorse.

There is something going on.

[Guest drlogic]

That story is insane! What are the odds of that shit happening? That shit just ain't fair.

[CrzyC1414779017]

There was an episode of "house" that focused on this bacteria. Its very scary!!!

[Guest swirlundergrounder]

This bacteria is mainly contracted while people stay in hospitals. They say that some strains of the bacteria are so agressive that you can see it eating your flesh away with your own eyes!! How fu*ked up is that?

[Guest Slide On The Ice]

That is horribly fucked up. Even more so that it's not something you catch from being in revoltingly dirty conditions, but in a "sanitary" hospital of all places.

[Guest Miss_Digital]

200 + that shouldnt happen

call for a class action law suit or something of the sort

[all4tribal1414779019]

this bacteria is almost as bad as the N1H5 virus

[Bling]

so tragic....... :'(