Woman Falls Off Bike, Gets Flesh-Eating Bacteria

It seemed like a minor cut. Kylie Marble and her grandfather were playing "bike tag" on a paved trail near Portland, Ore., when she fell off and cut her knee. The 21-year-old went to the hospital, got it stitched up, and thought that was the end of it … until that night when her thigh started to swell up. She woke up in the hospital a week later, discovering that she'd been sedated after doctors discovered that she'd contracted a rare flesh-eating bacteria known as Clostridium perfringens, or CP, WJBF 6 reports.

For a while, doctors thought they would have to amputate Marble's leg in order to save her life. But after multiple operations in two hospitals, Marble is recovering—she even managed to walk eight feet one recent morning, the Portland Tribune reports. "I'll be able to walk again," she predicts, "but I'll probably walk a little funny." Marble still has to undergo skin grafts, but her recovery is "a miracle," her mother says. "Not just one miracle, but a whole bunch of them." A gofundme campaign to finance Marble's recovery has so far raised just shy of $5,000. (Click to read about another young woman who contracted flesh-eating bacteria after a seemingly minor accident.)