A young Texas mom went blind in her eye after flesh-eating bacteria seeped its way into a cut during a “Mud Run�? earlier this month in Dallas. 
 
 Brittany Williams has no insurance and, after a week week in the hospital, now owes more than $100,000 in medical bills — even as she faces more treatment to prevent the debilitating bacteria from spreading through her body. 
 
 “My eye started hurting, like maybe I’ve got mud or some debris in there,�? Brittany Williams told KTVT-TV of the symptoms she had hours after the race. “When I opened my eye, it was just like white. The whole room was white.�? 
 
 FOLLOW THE DAILY NEWS ON FACEBOOK. CLICK HERE TO "LIKE" 
 
 Doctors at the emergency room told Williams she had “several abrasions on her cornea and what looked like a chemical burn�? and eventually sent her home, according to a Go Fund Me page raising donations for the family. 
 
 Some 24 hours later, “things took a turn for the worse�? and she was hospitalized. Her cornea “just completely melted off of my eye," she told KTVT of the flesh-eating bacteria. 
 
 Williams is now blind in her left eye and likely needs more antibiotics to prevent the bacteria from spreading throughout her bloodstream. 
 
 Brittany Williams said her eye started hurting badly just hours after competing in the Mud Run earlier this month in Dallas. (KTVT) 
 
 Despite working two jobs, Williams chose to opt out of her insurance and will have to pay her medical bills out of pocket. 
 
 “I’ve had health insurance before and I never used it. I never went to the doctor and I just spent lots of money for nothing. So I didn’t see the point at the time when we couldn’t afford it,�? she told the CBS affiliate. “You don’t think you’re going to go to the doctor and someone’s gonna say you owe $3,000 for eye drops.�? 
 
 Bacteria is reportedly rampant at mud races like the one Williams ran and similar Tough Mudder-like events. A report last May from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 22 people contracted a diarrheal illness in October 2012, likely because they accidentally swallowed water contaminated with bacteria from animal feces during an extreme obstacle course in Nevada. 
 
 Mud runs have previously been reported to be cesspools of bacteria, with reports of people being sickened by bacteria from feces in the water. (KARL-JOSEF HILDENBRAND/AFP/Getty Images) 
 
 And in France, after a Mud Day race on Saturday, at least 30 runners of about 8,000 became “violently ill�? from gastroenteritis, according to French news site The Local. The sickness may stem from mud contaminated with bacteria. 
 
 Williams, for her part, is trying to stay positive about the ordeal. There is a chance she could regain her sight, but several doctors have refused to treat her because she doesn’t have insurance. 
 
 About 170 have donated nearly $10,000 to the stricken mom since her ordeal began two weeks ago. 
 
 “Even though people go through horrible things, I make the best of it,�? Williams told KTVT. “Because there’s no point in sitting and sulking, because it’s just going to make the rest of my days miserable.�? 
 
 ON A MOBILE DEVICE? WATCH THE VIDEO HERE. ||||| Follow CBSDFW.COM: Facebook | Twitter 
 
 COLLIN COUNTY (CBSDFW.COM) – A young woman went blind in one eye within 24 hours after catching a flesh-eating bacteria during a mud run in Dallas this month. 
 
 “My eye started hurting, like maybe I’ve got mud or some debris in there,” said Brittany Williams, who finished her first mud run two weeks ago. “When I opened my eye, it was just like white. The whole room was white.” 
 
 Williams said the debris cut her eye, allowing flesh-eating bacteria to destroy her cornea. “It just completely melted off of my eye.” 
 
 A mother with two jobs, Williams spent a week in the hospital. Her medical bills are $100,000 and she doesn’t have health insurance. 
 
 “I’ve had health insurance before and I never used it. I never went to the doctor and I just spent lots of money for nothing. So I didn’t see the point at the time when we couldn’t afford it,” said Williams. 
 
 Her family is raising money through a GoFundMe account for treatment to prevent the bacteria from spreading throughout Williams’ body. 
 
 “You don’t think you’re going to go to the doctor and someone’s gonna say you owe $3,000 for eye drops,” said Williams, who compared her experience to a horror movie. 
 
 Despite her painful, gruesome ordeal, Williams has remained optimistic. 
 
 “Even though people go through horrible things, I make the best of it. Because there’s no point in sitting and sulking, because it’s just going to make the rest of my days miserable,” she said. 
 
 There’s a chance Williams’ will eventually regain her vision with surgery. Several local doctors however have denied her treatment since she lacks insurance. 
 
 (©2015 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.) ||||| (CNN) -- A South Carolina woman undergoing treatment for infection with a rare case of "flesh-eating" bacteria was in critical but stable condition Thursday at Greenville Memorial Hospital, a hospital spokeswoman said. 
 
 Lana Kuykendall, 36, "underwent her fifth debridement surgery to remove necrotic, or dead, tissue from her lower leg," said Sandy Dees, senior media relations coordinator for Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center, in a news release. 
 
 Kuykendall was admitted and diagnosed last Friday with necrotizing fasciitis, the release said. 
 
 A team of surgeons, critical-care physicians and infection disease specialists was monitoring her condition, which is typically managed by surgery, antibiotics and aggressive supportive care, it said. 
 
 "She remains very ill but stable," Dr. Bill Kelly, the hospital epidemiologist, said in the release. 
 
 Kuykendall was healthy when she gave birth to twins on May 7 in Atlanta but went to the hospital near her home in South Carolina a few days later after noticing a rapidly expanding bruise on her leg, her husband, Darren, told CNN on Wednesday. Doctors there removed dead skin and tissue from her legs and she was put on a ventilator, he said. 
 
 Kuykendall is a nurse and paramedic; her husband is a firefighter. The twins are healthy, he said. 
 
 A two-hour drive south of Greenville, in Augusta, Georgia, 24-year-old Aimee Copeland was battling similarly aggressive bacteria on Thursday. Doctors have amputated one of her legs and surgically removed part of her abdomen. Her father, Andy Copeland, told CNN on Wednesday that her fingers, too, will have to be amputated. 
 
 Still, "Aimee continues to be in good spirits," said a blog posted on the website of the Psychology Department at the University of West Georgia, where Aimee Copeland is a graduate student. 
 
 "Two major medical developments today for Aimee," it said. "Those will be announced later today once Andy has the opportunity to type them out. Stay tuned." 
 
 Copeland contracted the flesh-devouring bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila when she fell May 1 from a homemade zip line that broke and cut her leg. The gash required 22 staples. Days later, still in pain, she went to the Augusta hospital, where doctors diagnosed her with necrotizing fasciitis. 
 
 The psychology student is on a ventilator and has undergone a tracheotomy. 
 
 Flesh-eating bacteria explained 
 
 A number of bacteria can cause the condition, which attacks and destroys healthy tissue and is fatal about 20% of the time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
 
 The bacteria are common in the environment but rarely cause an infection; when they do, the body's immune system is almost always able to fight them off, according to experts. 
 
 Occasionally, however, the bacteria find their way into the bloodstream -- either through a cut or an abrasion. 
 
 In such cases, doctors move aggressively, excising even healthy tissue near the infection site to ensure none of the dangerous bacteria remain. 
 
 Necrotizing fasciitis is rare. Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, estimated in a telephone interview on Wednesday that fewer than 250 cases occur each year in the United States, though such estimates are imprecise since doctors do not have to report the cases to health authorities. 
 
 CNN's Melissa Gray contributed to this report
– A young mother in Texas who holds down two jobs but doesn't have health insurance is in the fight of her life—doing battle with not just the necrotizing fasciitis that has already claimed the vision in her left eye but also with her $100,000 medical bill. It all started a few hours after a mud run in Dallas earlier this month. "My eye started hurting, like maybe I've got mud or some debris in there," Brittany Williams tells CBS DFW. "When I opened my eye, it was just like white. The whole room was white.... [The bacteria] just completely melted off of my eye." She suspects that debris cut her eye, providing an entryway for the bacteria; CBS reports it has destroyed her cornea. And while some doctors have told her it's possible she'll someday regain vision in that eye with surgery, she needs antibiotics to prevent the bacteria from spreading to other parts of her body and several doctors are denying her treatment because she has no insurance. (Her GoFundMe page is currently at around $11,500. An updated posted there on Tuesday notes "we were asked to leave [an appointment] and told we could no longer be treated within their facility secondary to lack of insurance and full payment.") Williams' ordeal isn't exactly rare, reports the New York Daily News. Just last week, dozens of mud runners in France became violently ill from gastroenteritis, likely due to bacteria in the mud, while 22 people contracted a diarrheal illness in Nevada in 2012 thanks to bacteria in animal feces on an obstacle course. (In Florida, a "flesh-eating" water bacteria has killed two.)