Now a New Mom Battles Flesh-Eating Bacteria

As Aimee Copeland continues to fight necrotizing fasciitis, another woman in the Southeast is battling the flesh-eating bacteria, too. Just days after giving birth to twins, Lana Kuykendall had severe pain in her leg—and then husband Darren noticed a spot that looked like a bruise or a blood clot that was spreading quickly. “Literally, you could almost watch it grow as you're standing there,” he says. By the time he got her to the hospital, where she is currently in critical condition, the affected tissue “had almost encircled her leg,” he says.

No word on where the South Carolina woman picked up the infection, which is typically spread through an open wound or cut but can also enter the bloodstream through internal bleeding such as a black-and-blue mark, CNN reports. An epidemiologist tells WLTX that people shouldn’t panic even though both cases are in the Southeast (Copeland is in Georgia). "It's just chance, it doesn't mean we're going to see another one any sooner,” he says. “It's very uncommon here." Kuykendall, 36, has had skin and tissue removed from her legs and is using a ventilator, but her husband is optimistic for her recovery and says she is stable. (More Aimee Copeland stories.)