May 11th, 2012
01:46 PM ET

Victim of flesh-eating bacteria is showing ‘fighting spirit,’ dad says

A University of West Georgia graduate student who lost one limb and will probably lose parts of others to flesh-eating bacteria is mouthing words to her family and showing a "fighting spirit," her father said Friday.

Aimee Copeland is fighting for her life at an Augusta hospital after her left leg and part of her abdomen were removed last week. She contracted the infection after injuring her calf in a zip line accident 10 days ago.

"I would say that she has more commands than questions right now," Andy Copeland told "CNN Newsroom," saying his daughter’s breathing tube was repositioned so her parents could read her lips. "'I can’t talk,' was what she said. And we said, 'We know, honey, you've got a tube down your throat.'

"She said, 'Then take it out.' So her fighting spirit is obviously shining through right now.'

Aimee, 24, contracted the bacteria - Aeromonas hydrophila - during an outing with friends near the Little Tallapoosa River, about 50 miles west of Atlanta, on May 1, her family has said. She fell when a homemade zip line she was using snapped, and she gashed her left calf.

The family has said she sought medical treatment for the wound and received 22 staples to close it, according to CNN affiliate WSB. But on May 4, after she complained of pain for days, a friend took her to an emergency room, and she was diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis and flown to Augusta for surgery. She went into cardiac arrest after being removed from the operating table, but was resuscitated, CNN affiliate WGCL reported.

Her father wrote in an Internet post Thursday that her hands and remaining foot also will have to be amputated soon, because blood vessels there have died as the disease has spread. He said Friday that Aimee doesn’t yet know about these next amputations.

"There’s no way I would reveal that to her in her current state. I believe that it would just traumatize her further," he said, adding that a psychiatrist at the hospital will tell her when she's able to talk.

Andy Copeland wrote Thursday that Aimee shows no sign of brain damage and that a doctor said her lungs are healing. On Friday, he told CNN the road ahead for Aimee will be difficult.

"It's obvious (that) if you’re missing one limb, it's going to be hard enough. But if you're missing all of your limbs, it’s going to be incredibly difficult," he said. "But I guess I want everybody to know is that she’s not alone. She’s got her family to support her in this, and not just us."

Thousands of people have connected with a Facebook page that the family also is using to update her progress.

"She's got the support of the entire world right now. And that's really what's humbled us greatly in this entire process, just knowing that everybody's looking at Aimee and praying for Aimee and just offering their undying support. For that, we'll be eternally grateful."

Aimee Copeland, of Snellville, Georgia, is a graduate psychology student at the University of West Georgia and was scheduled to complete her master's degree in the fall, school spokeswoman Yolanda Rodriguez said.

On Thursday night, a couple dozen students and faculty members attended a vigil for her in a building that houses the school’s psychology department.

"Despite the fact that medical evidence says she should be dead, she isn't. I think that’s what makes it so precious to so many people, to see how amazing she really is," Chris Aanstoos, a University of West Georgia professor, told WSB on Thursday.

Dr. Buddy Creech, an assistant professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University, said that Aeromonas hydrophila, found in water and elsewhere in the environment, is one of many bacteria that can cause a flesh-eating process.

"When it gets into those deeper tissues, it has a remarkable ability to destroy the tissues that surround it in sort of this hunt for nutrition," Creech said Friday. "When it does that, those tissues die, and you see the inflammation and the swelling and the destruction that can be very difficult to control."

Creech said Aeromonas hydrophila more commonly affects humans when it is swallowed - resulting in diarrhea. When young children or children with immune problems drink water with the bacteria, "they can get a very significant diarrhea illness from it," he said.

"It’s much more uncommon that we see it in (a case like Copeland's), where we see wounds get infected and the infection runs wild,” Creech said.

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Filed under: Georgia • Health
soundoff (694 Responses)
  1. Obelisktrj

    *people like me are not using will to "break will"

    We are using waves....it's a slow drowning of the will really to anyone who isn't aligned. Your spirit isn't waning, its just going up to higher meaning. It's more about water and it's erosion of those against this wave or flow (I just balance equations). The ones that resist the most with the most will, will feel the most resistance.

    The reason is the ethereal in its natural essence does the divine will without any specific directive by the observer or his /her ndividual will. In a way, I'm just cycling higher levels down here and that just happens to erode the darks will. Think of the dark as a rock in a stream of water, if the stream accelerates the rock is going to disappear due to erosion unless it stops resisting.

    So many are changing the world just like being, you arnt seeing a superman talking to Obama or merkel and having to kss a ss and go through all this drama. You just have people aligning themselves with above and this just happens to manifest with the divine and utilitarian will, so things happen that benefit mankind or protect it. If you think about it it's better than superman or a character/personality, because it's completely anonymous and there is no focus by the collective mind on one person. I don't haVe to kss a ss in congress to get this will to pass, I just am and balance waves in the inner mind, and the "greater good" happens. I personally cannot know if any specific event is the greater good because it would require the context of all of history, but waves are entangled and form a wave function where all realities are taking place simultaneously. So by flowing with this wave function and greater thought form, someone doesn't have to use the will or be a super hero individually in the spotlight,which slows you down and puts you on the observable grid, which only benefits someone like lex Luther who has mastered the will of physicality and can play with power–an individual can't be god unless they resonate with this higher reality n the first place, so they would limit themselves with the will and lex Luther would win.

    No, just flow with the higher level and then all the lex Luthers experience erosion...their will starts breaking naturally.

    So it's not really about breaking will (more accurately it would be like drowning), that implies violence and it's not really the point. It's about hastening everyone's evolution, even those who are resisting.

    May 16, 2012 at 5:45 am | Report abuse |
  2. Obelisktrj

    It's las follows:

    Waves build upon waves, the greater wave function is the utilitarian because the self justified ism or self re enforcing wave is the "kernel" or "one" by which all successive complexity as instability leads to greater "ones" take place...as the source code, you just iterate in this basic one or wave function with the feeling or being emanation. So you don't get into specifics, which was actually my domain, because any specific action can not be known to be utilitarian unless placed in the totality of the greater context..but you do know from the source code that the being emanation or "one" is the utilitarian, for it's kernel iterates it or "unfolds it"..think of it as time origami, you are getting the natural algorithm of the source code and just balancing the equation....and that's all you need to do the utilitarian, the being emanation and the eave function thought form.

    Any specific action that is not aligned with this thought form once it reaches a critical mass feels erosion, which is why many of you have felt that emptiness in the heart area recently ('more than usual)..

    Because Histry is being sped up to a simultaneous point where everything takes place at the same time (which is the over unity function or god, the "clear lightl" )

    since everything runs on this "infinity os" all you need to do is emanate it with no ego and any specific action on the "ground" finds a catch 22 if it's not aligned, because these actions are limited, the nfinite is not for it contains all lower patterns or limited constructs.

    Many people like me "control the world" just by flowing with this wave function or god pattern. It's not without intellect because any intellect is based on limited presents, the best planner just takes into account the limitations of others and plans accordingly,vhenc,Che is less "bounded" more control....

    So by not having any desire or fear you are less "predictable" or defend, you are a more complex pattern and the most complex happens to be god, the infinity.

    Therefore, all your limited constructs will not materialize if not aligned because the infinity contains it.

    So you really don't control anything, to control everything, because as the god pattern or cosmic mind the unity is the perfection all these intellectuals and idealists have been seeking for ages.

    May 16, 2012 at 6:00 am | Report abuse |
  3. Obelisktrj

    The darks think this is "shameful" and abide by a moralist philosophy of luciferianism. Courage, ethics, and pure will. Because then nothing "means anything"

    This is not so, the reason it feels this way is because humanity did not complete the tree of life and went instead to the tree of knowledge barely a quarter of a way through the life tree.

    If we had continued, humanity would have understood that courage and all these things are admirable but the highest level is perfection and being, self perfection (mallows hierarchy of needs bs) and this would require the end of the ego. It is a paradox. Because the ego in its quest for perfection must eventually give itself up o reach it (have no ego).

    So it feels "weird" "not right"

    But that's because we would feel like crp IMF we just jumped to the higher level, because we wouldn't "feel anything"

    You see mankinds feeling is still in the morality range, mankind feels bad when it sees someone hurt or unfairness....and this is accurate, that feeling is accurate, what happens is that mankind has failed to correctly interpret this feeling and ends up clinging to indignation and self righteousness, the emotional intelligence is not advanced as well as the rational faculties to put it in context.

    But that feeling is the correct one....people shouldn't have to suffer (like this girl)...it is a great ASSET to mankind and many in the animal kingdom to feel this way, as if it didn't you'd quickly find that it is closely tied to creativity, beauty and the intellect....all ofmwhich flow from creation....

    The problem is that the mind has historically stifled being because man has not been able to put it in context, since we didn't first graduate from the tree of life...so the mind or rational faculties become at odds with feeling and this kills the tree f life later in life....due to the tree of knowledge.

    The truth is that they are not opposed. The intellect amplifies being, it was not supposed to stifle it.

    The synchrony was to happen when man got through the dark age and the rational faculties to interpret things in a way that aligned themselves with the tree of life became available...

    Man still cannot see with full consciousness (not yet, that's going to change) with the clear light, and we have felt the maturing process of being with the tree of knowledge...

    So soon. We will be integrated with higher consciousness to interpret to amplify being, and continue on the tree of life path. Where we will eventually come full circle and join even higher knowledge to be masters of the clear light.

    We will then visit various worlds and help other civilizations in the Universe do the same thing.

    May 16, 2012 at 6:22 am | Report abuse |
  4. Obelisktrj

    *was in the moralist range

    As you have probably guessed, recent developments have made people resonate with the unity or being consciousness...which is the final in the tree of life..

    We will continue this path, just higher iterations of it*

    May 16, 2012 at 6:30 am | Report abuse |
  5. Obelisktrj

    To the annoying dark:

    You can experience all you want in the higher level. Down here you need to pay handsomely in karma. Makes no sense.

    May 16, 2012 at 6:34 am | Report abuse |
  6. Obelisktrj

    , put in "god and the ism onision" into google search, first post.

    May 16, 2012 at 6:37 am | Report abuse |
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