Woman with flesh-eating bacteria after donkey attack settles suit

Anna Maria Giacomi was attacked by a donkey she was feeding at a North Georgia commercial farm on Thanksgiving Day in 2015. (Credit: Channel 2 Action News)

Anna Maria Giacomi was attacked by a donkey she was feeding at a North Georgia commercial farm on Thanksgiving Day in 2015. (Credit: Channel 2 Action News)

A North Georgia woman attacked two years ago by a donkey she was feeding said she’s still recovering from the incident that led to a double amputation.

Anna Maria Giacomi recently settled a lawsuit against an unnamed North Georgia commercial farm for an undisclosed amount, Channel 2 Action News reported.

She nor attorney Darren Tobin are allowed to release the name of the farm or details of the settlement due to a confidentiality agreement.

Giacomi said she was feeding the donkey on Thanksgiving Day in 2015 when he grabbed her and pulled her into his pen.

“The donkey grabbed my wrist and started biting, chewing, crunching and going up my arm,” she said in a Skype interview with Channel 2.

She was flown to a hospital, where she says she contracted necrotizing fasciitis, a flesh-eating bacteria. It's the same bacteria that Aimee Copeland contracted after a zip-lining accident in the Little Tallapoosa River in May 2012. Necrotizing fasciitis is a bacterial infection caused when contaminated water enters an open wound.

Eleven surgeries later, Giacomi was without a leg and an arm, Channel 2 reported. She also had to move in with her son in Miami.

“This is the worst thing that can happen, really,” she said. “And if it happened to me, it can happen to anyone.”

In other news: