CAPE CORAL, Fla. — The city of Cape Coral issued a boil water notice, city-wide, for people who use or consume city water. On its website, the city says two different random sampling locations revealed E. coli bacteria in the water supply.
"Do not drink the water without boiling it first," the website states in bold, capitalized letters. The city is instructing people to consume bottled water or bring all water to a boil for at least one minute and let it cool before using.
The city said it anticipates "resolving the problem within the next 72 hours", which would be Thursday night, September 15.
Yajaida Aristhyl, a nurse practitioner with Suncoast Medical Group in Lehigh Acres, talked with us after the boil advisory came out.
"E. coli is a contaminant that can cause some real big issues with the gastrointestinal system," said Aristhyl. "Diarrhea, abdominal pain, some nausea could be other symptoms that they get. There's really no treatment for it as it is like a virus situation. It just to just work itself out of your system."
Aristhyl said the process to work through E. coli is about "two to five days".
"At any point, you don't have to have (all the symptoms), just one of them or two of them are significant enough to report them to your doctor."
For any person who may get infected with E. coli, Aristhyl recommends watching for dehydration as the body recovers.
"That's really important because you're going to be losing a lot of fluids," said Aristhyl. "It's not as important that you eat but it's very important that you drink so that you don't have to end up like in the ER having to get an I.V. because that can cause some other imbalances and some other issues if you're you know if you get completely dehydrated.”
