Flesh-Eating Bacteria to Claim Student's Hands, Foot

But Aimee Copeland responded to news by mouthing, 'Let's do this'
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 18, 2012 1:42 PM CDT
Flesh-Eating Bacteria to Claim Student's Hands, Foot
This undated photo provided by the family shows Aimee Copeland.   (AP Photo/Copeland Family)

A young Georgia woman fighting a flesh-eating bacteria has learned she will lose her hands and remaining foot, and responded by mouthing the words, "Let's do this." Her father recounted the conversation in an update on his Facebook page today. Andy Copeland wrote about the difficult talk he had a day earlier with daughter Aimee, 24. She "shed no tears, she never batted an eyelash. I was crying because I am a proud father of an incredibly courageous young lady," Copeland wrote. It was not immediately clear whether the surgeries had already happened.

Copeland said he was finally able to tell his daughter yesterday what had happened since she suffered a deep gash in her leg after falling May 1 from a homemade zip line over a Georgia river, and how she's been the focus of an outpouring of love from around the world. He recalled how Aimee's eyes widened, her jaw dropped. Then, Copeland took his daughter's hands and held them up to her face. "She didn't draw back in horror. She knew the condition she was in," he wrote. He explained that doctors believed her hands were hampering her progress, and they must be removed. Aimee nodded, her father said. (More Aimee Copeland stories.)

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