An 11-year-old boy died after a sprained ankle led to a flesh-eating bacterial infection

• A Florida boy sprained his ankle while using a treadmill and later got a bacterial infection.
• He was diagnosed with strep-A, which turned into a flesh-eating bacteria that killed him.

An 11-year-old boy in Florida died from a flesh-eating bacterial infection after he sprained his ankle, his family said.

Jesse Brown, from Winter Park in Florida, twisted his ankle and potentially scratched it while using a treadmill last month, his cousin Megan Brown told Fox 35.

A few days later, the boy's family noticed that his leg was covered in "splotchy, purply, red, almost like bruises," which turned out to be the first sign of strep-A.

"In my mind, I was in complete disbelief. I was like, 'he'll be fine. This could never happen to our family,'" Megan Brown said.

The boy was admitted to the ICU and diagnosed with strep-A, which turned into a flesh-eating bacteria that caused his brain to swell and killed him.

"They said that because he rolled his ankle, that that's likely where the infection attacked it. Because it was already weak," his cousin said.

"For this to kill him in just a matter of days was crazy," she said.

On a memorial fund page for the boy, staff from Lakemont Elementary School in Orange County said: "While Jesse was a miracle to his parents and family, he was also a true blessing to his Lakemont family. Jesse was kind and compassionate, looked out for others, adventurous, and truly an amazing friend and classmate."

"If there was more awareness, maybe we could have caught it earlier when we noticed he had a fever," Brown said.

Group-A strep is the bacteria that causes strep throat. A pediatrician told Fox 35 that there had been an uptick in invasive strep-A cases among children in the US.