Ignoring warnings proved out to be fatal for a California surfer, 71-year-old Barry Ault. He ignored warnings to stay out of the waves and ended up losing his life because of the staph infection that he caught from the water.

Ault went for surfing a few days after a rain storm hit the southern California coast. Ignoring all the warnings of elevated bacteria levels, Ault plunged into the waves along Sunset Cliffs. Just three days after this, he suffered sudden flu-like symptoms.

His condition deteriorated to such an extent that he fell into coma. Two days after that, on Christmas day, Ault died.

His widow, Sally Ault, in an interview to ABC10 said, “He had a raging staph infection, so he was in complete sepsis. His whole body was full of staph”. She added that she couldn’t confidently say if the Vibrio bacteria was responsible for his demise as there is no evidence to vindicate that.

Two other friends of Ault who had gone along with him in the water also fell seriously ill to an extent that one of them required notification to the Centers for Disease Control.