A northeastern Ontario woman is recovering after getting the flesh eating disease in May. Deborah Charette was bitten by a black fly while working in her garden in Astorville, near North Bay. She says she didn’t think much of it, until two days later when she had to be rushed to the hospital.
She had an erratic heart rate and her organs were already shutting down. Charette ended up having to have a mastectomy to stop the disease from spreading. She says she needed the operation immediately, or she wouldn’t have made it through the night. She says as soon as doctors started operating, they knew it was the flesh eating bacteria.
She is now raising awareness, saying this could happen to anyone. Health Canada estimates that there are 90 to 200 cases of flesh eating disease a year in Canada.