OK, I’m mostly up to speed with the subject, but some background:
A “Discovery Health” program tonight mentioned a case of a man who lost a good bit of the flesh on a leg from necrotizing fasciitis, the result of an ankle injury during a soccer game. There was no indication in the program of the skin actually having been broken.
Locally, about fifteen years ago, there were two notable cases: One in which a high-school football player suffered a bruise on his leg. A week or so later, he suddenly got sick and died.
Within a year of that, two school kids (in their teens) got into a fight, one of whom got puched in the chest and ending up with a bruise. Within a week, the kid who was punched developed “a fast spreading infection” which killed him quickly.
In that case, as well as the local football player, the diagnoses were the same: necrotizing fasciitis.
Now, not having access to the autopsy reports or their medical records, or having seen these “bruises” first-hand, I’m assuming that the bacteria was (or “were,” depending on how you look at it) able to establish a beachhead with just a bruise, and not needing the skin to be broken.
Is that plausible, and if so, why is bruised, but not broken, tissue more susceptible?