Victim of rare bacterial infection preparing to go home
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CHAPEL HILL – The Fayetteville teen who nearly died from a rare infection he likely got from swimming in Hope Mills Lake is getting ready to go home from the UNC Children’s Hospital.
Doctors had to remove part of 14-year-old Matthew McKinney’s face to stop the usually fatal infection from spreading.
It’s called chromo-bacterium violaceum, and there have been fewer than 150 cases worldwide since 1927.
Click here to watch Heather Moore's entire interview with the McKinney family.
“It was terrifying,” Chelseann McKinney, Matthew McKinney’s mother, said. “I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t lose my son.”
Doctors removed part of Matthew McKinney’s nose, part of the roof of his mouth and several teeth to stop the infection from spreading. His family is still trying to get used to his new look.
“I think having part of your nose missing is kind of strange,” Matthew McKinney said.
But Matthew said he’s not letting anything keep his family from smiling.
“If I keep a good sense of humor, time flies by a lot faster,” he said. “I wish this didn’t happen, but I know that when something happens, something good comes out of it. And I know the good part that will come out of this is the extra study, recent study with technology that there is now.”
And he said he’s not letting the rare infection keep him from swimming again.
“I’m going to avoid the lakes, but the ocean and the pool, I’m still going at it,” he said.
The McKinney family said they want everyone to know about Matthew’s case so that if anyone else catches the same infection, doctors might recognize and diagnose it more quickly.
He is expected to be released from the hospital Thursday.