A Northern California mother who reportedly ate undercooked fish from a San Jose market is now a quadruple amputee after likely contracting a bacterial infection from the food, her friend says.
Laura Barajas, 40, of San Jose, became ill after she bought fish from a local market in July, cooked it and ate it, her friend, Anna Messina, told Bay Area outlet KRON.
Messina said in an online fundraiser that Barajas, who has a 6-year-old son, was hospitalized and diagnosed with a vibrio vulnificus infection, which the CDC says can require amputations and sometimes lead to death within a day or two of becoming ill.
“She was on a respirator,” Messina told KRON. “They put her into a medically induced coma. Her fingers were black, her feet were black, her bottom lip was black. She had complete sepsis and her kidneys were failing.”
Messina told the outlet the fish her friend consumed was tilapia.
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Mother now a quadruple amputee
After being hospitalized for more than a month, her friend wrote in the online fundraiser, doctors removed both of the woman’s arms and legs on Sept. 13 “in order to save her life.”
“Find it in your hearts to support this beautiful family during this incredibly challenging time,” Messina wrote on the fundraising page. “What has happened to them could happen to any of us.”
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