PEARLAND, Texas — A Pearland woman is sharing a message of warning after her father died after he was infected by vibrio bacteria while fishing in Freeport.
“It’s literally, like the breath is sucked out of you,” said Brandy Pendergraft. “You wish you could change it and go back.”
Two months ago, Brandy Pendergraft’s life was turned upside down.
“That’s not how it was supposed to happen,” Pendergraft said. “He’s supposed to still be here. For a little bit longer.”
On an evening in early June, her 66-year-old father, Randy Bunch, was crabbing and fishing in Freeport.
It’s something he’d done countless times in the past, but this time was different.
Bunch wasn’t wearing his wading boots like he usually did when he stepped into the shallow water off of a boat ramp in his flip-flops, to retrieve a crab trap he had set earlier in the day.
He hadn’t noticed the small, days-old scrape on his right foot.
“It was a little tiny knick on the top of his foot,” Pendergraft said. “I mean not even an inch, it was tiny.”
A few hours later, Bunch started feeling sick.
“He called me having extreme pain all along the right side of his body,” Pendergraft said. “It sounded like heart attack symptoms so I told him you should probably go into an ER and get it checked out.”
When the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong, Bunch was released and went home. By the next morning, he had gotten worse.
“He had completely changed,” Bunch said. “He had a 104 fever he was lethargic, talking all disoriented, not making any sense.”
Bunch was ultimately taken to the Texas Medical Center, where his condition continued to deteriorate.
“Less than 12 hours, from walking talking working still doing the things he loved to he was on a ventilator in the ICU and we’re having to make life-changing decisions,” Pendergraft said.
After countless tests, doctors still couldn’t determine the cause of his illness. Then, Pendergraft said she looked at her dad’s leg.
“I saw his foot and was like, ‘Oh, gosh. Could this be the flesh-eating bacteria? The vibrio?” Pendergraft said.
It was confirmed to be a flesh-eating bacteria, but at that point, it was too late.
“The blisters were taking over his whole body,” Pendergraft said. “It was spreading. Just like a fire.”
Bunch died less than one week after he stepped into the water.
“All we have left are things,” Pendergraft said. “Memories. We’ll never be the same from this.”
Pendergraft has words of warning.
“It’s real,” she said. “It will get you. It will get anybody.”
She wants more to be done to caution those who get into the water.
“You don’t see a lot of signs posted,” Pendergraft said. “You might see a few here and there but it’s not as prevalent as it should be. I want more awareness for people who aren’t from here, who vacation here, yes we want the tourists and we want people to enjoy it but as a state we have to be doing more, for our locals too.”
The 11 reported cases were all out of Galveston County. Bunch was infected in next-door Brazoria County.
Bunch did have a blood disorder, however, anyone can get sick if an open wound is exposed to vibrio bacteria.