I-Team

MIAMI (CBS4) ― She was a professional Miami model whose natural beauty turned heads. But now, the stares she receives are of shock. She is a 29-year-old living in the shadows of a fight for life that, according to her attorney, fell apart following a manicure.

"It is a miracle that this girl is alive. It is a real miracle she did not lose her hand," said Marc Brumer, a Miami attorney who has handled multiple cases involving bacterial infections, including potentially life-threatening ones that were allegedly linked to manicures.

In photos, the hand and lower arm of his most recent client, who asked that the CBS4 I-Team not identify her, appears, as Brumer described it, filleted open.

Looking at the photos, CBS4 Chief Investigative Reporter Michele Gillen asked him how the woman copes with just even looking at her hands.

"She stays at home quite a bit and has not had much of a social life," Brumer said. He adds that doctors are convinced that the culprit that nearly killed his client is a bacterial infection commonly known as Flesh Eating Disease.

"That usually means death to me," Brumer told Gillen. "The chance of dying is nearly 50 percent."

Gillen met with Dr. Jay Dennis, chief of hand surgery at the University of Miami, who treated the young woman.

"You have seen other cases of this. How quickly might it work its way up an arm?" Gillen asked. "It could be a matter of hours" said Dr. Dennis.

"In the hand surgery literature, manicures are implicated as one of the sources of something called Paronychia, which are typically cuticle type of infections," he added.

And if you are wondering if Paronychia can lead to Flesh Eating Disease, Dr. Dennis says "yes."

"It could if it is inoculated with the right bacteria," Dennis explained.

"What happens is they either nip or catch it either with the cuticle scissor or the dremel, that thing that spins really fast, and if you have a cut or something in your skin it creates a portal or an opening for that bacteria to enter the body," said Brumer.

CBS4's investigation finds that up until now, many cases of Flesh Eating Bacteria have allegedly been traced and confined to hospital settings. One mother who went to an Orlando hospital to have a baby is now asking what happened to her.

Claudia Mejia believes she somehow ended up in a life-threatening position from Flesh Eating Bacteria because of her stay in the hospital. She had her child, but before she could leave the hospital, she had to have her limbs amputated as advancing bacteria attacked her tissues.

She said she was told, "If you decide to live, we have to amputate your legs and your arms."

Just one year ago, Carol Ellis didn't dare hold her husband's hand. The mother of three mysteriously contracted a deep tissue bacterial Staph infection. Sores and open wounds ascending up from her legs to her arms. She has no idea how she became infected. She just knows that her nightmare seemingly began when a biopsy wound on her leg would not heal -- a discovery that left her fearing for her life.

"At times, yes, when it started spreading and going to arms and my legs and my back and nothing was healing," Carol said.

Her husband who watched this unfold says it was not only frightening but heart breaking in that doctors told him to avoid contact with his wife. Carol's condition has vastly improved but she lives wondering what happened to her and what the future impact might be.

Back in Miami, Brumer is suing the salon he claims is to blame for his client's life-threatening injuries, as she continues to live in the shadows and awaits more surgeries.

Dr. Dennis sums up the case by agreeing that this case is very rare.

"You think this case of this woman is very rare?" Gillen asked. "I do," Dennis said. "But very real."

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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