Flesh eating bacteria!

Fantastic! : D

It was late last year that it all happened. It shocked and scared us all at the time, but now there's a beautiful and fish-ridden ending to one of the Tinny's most tragic yarns.

On his first trip back to the scene of the crime, a year after 'the incident', Tom Maher has caught fish. And returned home without injury! Listen to the audio to hear how it all went.

Here's how it all unfolded from the beginning:

Hi, my name is Tom Maher.

I am writing this from a bed in Royal Darwin Hospital.

On Saturday 10 November my wife Lorna and I headed out from the Buffalo Creek boat ramp for a pleasant days fishing in some of our favourite low tide holes in Shoal Bay near "The Rock" in our treasured 4.8m Quintrex Freedom Sport.

On the way over we had a bit of a trawl past the mouth of King Creek just before the turn of the high tide in the hope of hooking one of the elusive metre barra known to frequent the area.

After a couple of runs past the mouth without any joy we reeled in and headed over to the holes between spots five and 15 and settled in with a cuppa and some snacks to wait for the tide to go out.

About 10am the tide was low enough for me to wander off across the sand flats to chase a few mullet so Lorna could be set up with some livvies out the back of the boat while I moseyed around some of the other holes flicking lures in likely looking spots.

As a back up I took a handline with me to set up with a live mullet while casting lures amongst the snags in the holes. After about 15 minutes without any success in the first hole I decided to check out another nearby hole.

I left the handline at the first hole as figured that if I hooked anything with it the fish couldn't go far.

The second hole looked pretty good but there was still an hour or so to go to the bottom of the tide when the barra would be really on the bite so I thought I would go back and pick up the handline and head back to the boat and have a bit of lunch with Lorna.

When I got to the hand line it was apparent that something had taken the bait and headed into the snags. As it was only three or four metres out to where the line was snagged I decided to wade out and desnag it.

The water was just above knee deep and when I got out to the line I felt some sort of marine animal swim between my legs and inflicted a three inch long and half inch deep bite or sting on my right calf.

Bleeding profusely and in a lot a pain I stumbled the 300 odd metres back to the boat. Lorna helped me back in, bandaged my leg to stem the bleeding and settled me in as best a possible on the floor of the boat.

It was still a couple of hours before the turn of the tide and recognising that I was in need of relatively urgent medical attention Lorna tried with little success to get through to the ambulance on the emergency 000 number.

Mobile phone reception was poor so she turned her attention to the marine radio. Neither of us had any idea how to use the radio effectively but Lorna managed to get through to Coast Radio Darwin on Channel 10 who arranged for an ambulance to meet us at the Shoal Bay Boat Ramp once we could get underway with the incoming tide.

The pain from the bite was enormous.

There was very little Lorna could do to alleviate it for me. All I could do was writhe about and scream in agony on the floor of the boat waiting for the tide to come in enough for us to head over to boat ramp.

We initially thought that would be around 2pm but we didn't get underway until about 4:30pm, some five hours after the incident occurred.

On a scale of 0 to 10 with the 10 being the worst imaginable pain, I put my pain at 10 for the entire period. It was great when we finally got to the ambulance at Shoal Bay and they were able to administer pain relief.

Lorna still had to get the boat back to Buffalo Creek and on to the trailer and then back home. Thankfully some other fishos helped her take the boat back to Buff Creek and our neighbour, Owen, helped her back the boat up our steep driveway.

Once I got to hospital I thought I would stay there overnight to allow the doctors enough time to clean wound and put a few stitches in to put me back together.

However a flesh eating bacteria found in the tropical waters this time of year had got into the open wound and resulted in a rapid deterioration in the condition of the wound which resulted in a fist size hole in the calf of my leg within a few days.

After nearly 3 weeks of treatment with massive doses of antibiotics and super doses of oxygen in the hospital's hypobaric chamber (used for treating scuba divers with the benz) the battle with the bacteria seems to have been won. I am now just waiting on a skin graft to start covering up the open wound.

There has been a lot speculation of what actually bit or stung me. Could have been a stingray, a small shark, a baby croc or some other fish. I will probably never know.... but I will probably (maybe) take some regard of Lorna's new rule for future trips to Shoal Bay, that is 'stay in the boat!'

And now Tom has just completed his first trip back to the scene of the crime, a year after the incident. And he caught fish. Listen to the audio to hear how it all went.

And by way of warning the NT Department of Health says the bacteria is known as Vibrio bacteria.

They are a family of bacteria that live in warm sea water and are found throughout the world but are particularly common in large gulfs in tropical areas such as the Bay of Bengal, the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of Carpentaria.

People with poor immunity, particularly those with chronic liver disease, can get the infection through the skin, when cuts or abrasions are exposed to sea water, or through ingesting contaminated food or water.

The infection can start as a wound infection and can quickly spread to cause overwhelming and life threatening bloodstream infection.