PEARLAND, Texas — A woman from Pearland is sharing a warning after her father passed away from a vibrio bacteria infection he contracted while fishing in Freeport.
“It’s 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 changed dramatically.
“That’s not how it was supposed to happen,” Pendergraft said. “He’s supposed to still be here. For a little bit longer.”
One evening in early June, her 66-year-old father, Randy Bunch, was crabbing and fishing in Freeport.
He had done this many times before, but this time was different.
Bunch wasn’t wearing his usual wading boots when he stepped into the shallow water off a boat ramp in flip-flops to retrieve a crab trap he had set earlier.
He didn’t notice the small, days-old scrape on his right foot.
“It was a tiny nick on the top of his foot,” Pendergraft said. “Not even an inch, it was tiny.”
A few hours later, Bunch started feeling ill.
“He called me with extreme pain all along the right side of his body,” Pendergraft said. “It sounded like heart attack symptoms, so I told him to go to 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 worsened.
“He had completely changed,” Bendergraft said. “He had a 104 fever, was lethargic, talking disoriented, not making any sense.”
Bunch was taken to the Texas Medical Center, where his condition continued to decline.
“Less than 12 hours from walking, talking, working, and still doing the things he loved to being on a ventilator in the ICU and us having to make life-changing decisions,” Pendergraft said.
After countless tests, doctors still couldn’t determine the cause of his illness. Then, Pendergraft looked at her dad’s leg.
“I saw his foot and thought, ‘Oh, gosh. Could this be the flesh-eating bacteria? The vibrio?” Pendergraft said.
It was confirmed to be a flesh-eating bacteria, but it was too late.
“The blisters were taking over his whole body,” Pendergraft said. “It was spreading like 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 a warning.
“It’s real,” she said. “It will get you. It will get anybody.”
She wants more to be done to warn those who enter 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 neighboring Brazoria County.
Bunch did have a blood disorder, but anyone can get sick if an open wound is exposed to vibrio bacteria.
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