A girl turning three years old left a beach in Florida with bacterial infections that forced her mother to rush her to the hospital less than a week later.
The mother of Aaliyah Casola, Anais Monteagudo, said that the toddler caught impetigo and cellulitis while at the beach in Key Biscayne.
“The next day I noticed she had redness under her lip but I didn’t think anything of it,” Monteagudo told the Miami Herald.
“It got considerably worse as the days passed; the redness turned into blisters, and they kept growing on her body. That’s when I took her to the hospital.”
A doctor at the hospital told her that many people visiting beaches in Key Biscayne have had the same issues.
According to the Mayo Clinic, impetigo is a highly contagious skin infection that mainly affects infants and children, causing red sores on the face, hands, and feet. Causes are typically coming into contact with someone who has been infected or with items they have touched.
The Clinic stated that cellulitis is a rare complication of impetigo. “This potentially serious infection affects the tissues underlying your skin and eventually may spread to your lymph nodes and bloodstream. Untreated cellulitis can quickly become life-threatening,” the clinic stated.
Toddler catches bacterial infections after birthday beach day in Key Biscayne, mom says https://t.co/ieFdKN3rPP pic.twitter.com/p63qqTgOEv
— Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) July 29, 2018
Records from Miami-Dade County show that the beach the family visited, Crandon Beach North, as well as Crandon Beach South and Golden Beach, was closed for high feces levels before reopening a few days before the toddler and her family visited.
Monteagudo said that there were no warning signs regarding possible risk and added on Facebook that the beach charges $8 per car for parking.
“This is insane! Where is that money going if it’s not making sure the beaches are clean?” she wrote.
According to WSVN, no warning signs were posted by officials before the beaches closed either, although NBC reported that four days before the birthday beach trip, the Florida Department of Health issued a no swimming advisory for the beaches that was only lifted about a week later, after the family visited.
Pictures posted by Monteagudo show her daughter’s hands with intense swelling on most of the fingers as well as signs of infections across her stomach.
“She’s now in pain and most likely getting scars all over her little hands and her chin because of this,” she wrote.
“There are significant scars,” Monteagudo added to NBC. “I was scared because I didn’t know if it was going to impact her internally.”
The mother said she is considering taking legal action.
