SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – A former San Diego man who nearly lost his foot to flesh-eating disease after a stingray sting at Black’s Beach returned Tuesday to the area where he was stung.<\/p>\n
Richard Woulfe, 62, was back on his feet Monday, nearly six months after a routine swim turned into a battle against necrotizing fasciitis. The ocean lover from Texas had been visiting San Diego in July when he was stung by a stingray while wading about 20 feet into the water at Black’s Beach.<\/p>\n
“When I was just about ready to jump in, I felt a little bit of a tug on the top of my left foot,” Woulfe said in an interview in July.<\/p>\n
After lifeguards treated the initial sting, Woulfe flew back to Texas. However, he ended up in the emergency room when strep and staph infections led to gangrene and flesh-eating disease inside his foot.<\/p>\n
“So it’s necrotizing?” Woulfe recalled asking him asking the doctor. A video shows him asking, “So the infection is already starting to take the foot?.\u201d<\/p>\n
The doctor confirmed his fears.<\/p>\n
Doctors performed emergency surgery and were able to save Woulfe’s foot. Two additional surgeries followed, including one in September where a skin graft was performed to help the deep wound heal.<\/p>\n
“Other than numbness, no pain,” Woulfe said about his current condition.<\/p>\n
When I met Woulfe near the area where he was stung, he said there were a few nerves.<\/p>\n
“When I pulled up today, I’m like, \u2018That’s where it happened,\u2019” Woulfe said.<\/p>\n
Despite his apprehension, a determined Woulfe took cautious steps during our meeting. He started walking on his foot a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n
“So nice to be walking outside. It feels amazing,” Woulfe said.<\/p>\n
Woulfe still faces six to 12 months of physical therapy ahead of him, but he remains optimistic about his recovery and has set an ambitious goal for himself.<\/p>\n
When asked if he would return to the water again, Woulfe didn’t hesitate.<\/p>\n
“Yes, most certainly,” Woulfe said. “Water has been my entire life. Water is healing.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – A former San Diego man who nearly lost his foot to flesh-eating disease after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49487,74,76,75,49488,49489],"class_list":["post-88887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-flesh-eating","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-stingray","tag-stingray-sting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}