Texas Woman Gets Flesh-Eating Bacteria In Eye During Mud Run, Is Now Blind In Left Eye

A woman is now blind in her left eye after a flesh-eating bacteria entered her eye during a Dallas, Texas, mud run. Mud runs are supposed to be fun events in which participants navigate an obstacle course which is filled with mud. However, for one Dallas woman, the event was life-changing, but for all the wrong reasons. Brittany Williams says 24 hours after she ran her first ever mud run, she was blind in her left eye.

KHOU reports that Brittany Williams took part in her first mud run approximately two weeks ago. Upon leaving the event her eye began to hurt. Since she had just ran the mud run, Brittany thought she may have gotten some mud or other debris in her eye. However, the pain didn’t go away. Within 24 hours of completing the run, Brittany was blind and discovered that a flesh-eating bacteria had entered her eye during the mud run event and completely “melted off” her eye.

“My eye started hurting, like maybe I’ve got mud or some debris in there. When I opened my eye, it was just like white. The whole room was white. It [the flesh-eating bacteria] just completely melted off of my eye.”

According to ABC 13, the flesh-eating bacteria entered her eye during the race when a piece of debris cut her eye allowing the bacteria to enter. The bacteria then began eating away at Brittany’s eye, which destroyed her cornea. Now the young mother is unable to see from her eye and doctors are unsure if they will be able to repair her vision. To make matters worse, Brittany does not have health insurance. The young mother says that she had health insurance in the past and never used it; therefore, she cancelled it to save the monthly payments. Now Brittany is faced with over $100,000 in medical bills and no end in sight to her medical needs.

Brittany’s family has setup a GoFundMe page for the woman, which notes that doctors are now refusing to care for the young mother unless she is able to make payments for her care. The family claims that doctors are now refusing to treat Brittany any further until she is able to make payments in full on her medical care balance.

“Before getting fully checked in or seeing any of her team members, we were asked to leave and told we could no longer be treated within their facility secondary to lack of insurance and full payment. Hunting the DFW area for a competent, capable specialist/surgeon now with rights to the specific scope she needs and also willing to take self pay payments.”

Though Brittany’s situation is continuing to get worse, doctors say there is a chance she could regain vision with a specialized eye surgery. However, Williams says she has been unable to find a doctor to perform the surgery because she doesn’t have insurance or the ability to pay for the full cost of the surgery up-front.

Did you know you could contract a flesh-eating bacteria simply from a splash of mud in the eye? What do you think of Brittany’s medical situation regarding her lack of insurance?

[Image Credit: CBS 11 Screenshot]