South MS man fighting for his life after swimming, fishing in Coast waterways
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- A Hancock County man likely contracted Vibrio vulnificus while fishing.
- He is battling a fast-spreading Vibrio infection at Slidell Memorial Hospital.
- Medical team must first control the Vibrio before assessing tissue damage.
Licensed practical nurse Amanda Wilson said her family is extremely cautious about swimming in Coast waterways, so they never thought one of them would contract a deadly Vibrio bacteria — until it happened.
Her husband, 50-year-old Steve Wilson, is fighting for his life at Slidell Memorial Hospital after contracting the flesh-eating bacteria Vibrio vulnificus, which thrives in warm, brackish water.
“This has been horrible,” Wilson said in a telephone interview while at her husband’s bedside. “You hear about it. You see it, but you don’t think it’s going to happen to you.”
The Hancock County couple loves to fish, but they are careful. They don’t swim if they have cuts that bacteria might infiltrate. And they fish in the Mississippi Sound, but never swim there because bacteria counts can be high.
They were fishing off Cat Island on Saturday morning. Steve Wilson mentioned that a horsefly had bitten him on his right foot. They applied bug spray and didn’t think anything more of it. They spent the afternoon cooling off in the Jourdan River.
At 5 a.m. Sunday morning, an aching right leg woke up Steve Wilson. By 7 a.m., his leg was hurting so bad that he rousted his wife.
“He felt like he had been hit in the leg with a hammer,” she said.
Vibrio puts Hancock man in ICU
She found a reddened area about the size of a nickel with a dark spot at the center on the inside of his ankle. His ankle was also swollen. She immediately marked the infected area to track its spread.
She drove her husband, a heavy equipment operator, to Slidell Memorial Hospital. By the time they arrived, she could see from her marks that the infection was spreading fast.
She can’t say enough about how much the team there has done to save her husband. It’s been touch and go. His leg looks better, then worse.
“This stuff is horrible,” Amanda Wilson said. “One minute you think it’s better. Twenty minutes later, he’s crashing.”
She said doctors have told them that her husband has a long road to recovery. They must first get the infection under control, then see how much damage Vibrio has done. Family and friends are supporting the Wilsons.
They have three sons, the youngest of whom is 18. Amanda Wilson’s best friend was with her Tuesday afternoon. Wilson has been publicly posting about her husband’s ordeal on Facebook.
She wants people to know how Vibrio strikes without warning or any indication of danger. She can’t say with certainty how her husband contracted Vibrio, but the horsefly bite seems to be the only way he could have been infected.
As usual, the family didn’t get in the water at Cat Island. But her husband did dip a cup into the water and splash fish blood from the boat. Maybe, she says, that’s when he got infected. Or maybe recent flooding drove enough brackish water into the river that he contracted the infection there.
“That one horsefly was the only portal of entry that he had that would have given the Vibrio access,” she said, still sounding shocked by the possiblity. “He had nothing else.”
In 2025, the bacteria killed a Bay St. Louis man after he scraped his leg on a boat trailer and, in 2017, the bacteria cost a Waveland fisherman his right leg — and his desire to fish.
This story was originally published July 1, 2026 at 7:28 PM.
