Photo Credit: Courtesy of Kaivac, Inc.
Kyle Frey, a 21-year-old junior from Drexel University in Philadelphia, was one of his school's star wrestlers when something startling happened. One day, Frey, who worked out with his team almost daily, noticed a small lesion--much like a pimple--developing on his arm; while it seemed slightly unusual, he thought little of it at the time.
A few days later, however, after a match with a competing team, Frey noticed that the pimple had now grown considerably, and was beginning to hurt. By morning, the pimple had grown as large as a golf ball and was very painful.
Frey's trainer rushed him to the emergency room, where doctors discovered an infection known as MRSA--methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus--a potentially deadly disease usually requiring treatment with several antibiotics in large quantities. Frey was released after a five-day hospital stay, healthy but quite curious about where he had acquired the disease. His doctors believed he might have caught it from another wrestler--someone who had the disease and wasn't aware of it. Or, more likely, he had contracted it from a contaminated wrestling mat and/or gym equipment, or even from surfaces such as benches in the locker room.
