OUTER BANKS, N.C. (WITN) - A man has spent more than a week in an Outer Banks hospital after a small cut on his leg turned into a Vibrio vulnificus infection. Doctors say the flesh-eating bacterium can destroy tissue and become deadly in fewer than 48 hours.

Cases of "flesh-eating" bacteria infections are climbing across the Southeast. North Carolina has tallied 59 Vibrio infections and one death this year, while Florida and Louisiana have recorded eight fatalities.

At least eight people along the Gulf Coast have died and 22 others have been infected with Vibrio vulnificus bacteria.