Take your tattoo artist’s hygiene advice. Photo: IFLScience!
Ever gotten tattooed and been tempted to ignore the artist’s entreaties to stay out of the ocean? Take heed of this cautionary tale, ye inked-up waxheads:
A 31-year-old man from Dallas did just that — he took a dip in the Gulf of Mexico just five days after getting some new ink on his lower right leg: A pair of praying hands and a cross with the words “Jesus is my life.” Three days after the swim, he went to the hospital with severe leg pain, later determined to be caused by Vibrio vulnificus — AKA flesh-eating bacteria — that had infected the tattoo. Two months later, he was dead. The infection caused a fatal case of septic shock. It probably didn’t help that the patient, a Hispanic man from Dallas but hasn’t been identified in news reports, had liver disease from years of drinking.
“Very quickly, over a couple of hours, it began to get more discolored, more bruised and had large blisters that began to form, which was certainly alarming to us as it was to him,” said a doctor at UT Southwestern Medical Center, the hospital the man was admitted to. After initial redness and pain, the bacteria caused bad blistering on his leg.
Apart from open wounds, humans can contract flesh-eating bacteria from eating raw seafood, particularly oysters. Flesh-eating bacteria are commonly found in coastal waters in warm months. Read that last sentence again.
In healthy people, most infections can be treated with antibiotics, but not always. The pathogen kills 100 people a year in the United States alone and causes 80,000 infections.
Tattoo artists recommend keeping new ink clean and staying out of baths, pools and the ocean for up to two weeks. Take their advice!
