She Had 𝑽𝒂𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍 Itching For A Week — During Endoscopy, Doctor Found A Nest Of Maggots Inside Her | HO

On an otherwise ordinary spring morning, Savannah Thompson stood alone in her kitchen, holding a mug of chamomile tea she hadn’t yet touched. Sunlight filtered through lace curtains and stretched across the hardwood floor in neat bands. Outside, birds called with the insistence of routine life. Inside, Savannah shifted her weight and crossed her legs, fighting a persistent sensation she could no longer ignore.

For nearly a week, she had felt an itching deep in her lower abdomen — not external, not superficial. At first it was faint, easily dismissed. By day five, it had become constant, intrusive, and deeply unsettling.

Savannah was not prone to panic. At 38, she was a registered nurse with more than fifteen years of clinical experience. She knew the difference between anxiety and pathology. She knew yeast infections, bacterial vaginosis, urinary irritation — and this was none of them.

Something was wrong.

What Savannah could not have known was that within days, surgeons would pull living larvae from her reproductive tract — and that the source of the infestation would lead investigators not to contaminated water or environmental exposure, but to her own marriage bed.

A Symptom That Wouldn’t Make Sense

Savannah had built her life around care. She worked long shifts at Monroe General Hospital, ran on Saturdays, tracked vitamins on a color-coded chart taped inside her pantry, and rarely missed church. She was the nurse families asked for by name.

She also had a habit common among healthcare workers: ignoring her own symptoms.

“I thought I was tired,” she later told investigators. “I thought it was stress. I thought it would pass.”

Her husband, Marcus Thompson, worked in insurance claims. Lately, he had been traveling more frequently — Atlanta, he said. Long meetings. Late returns. Their intimacy had dwindled. Savannah attributed it to grief; the couple had endured two miscarriages in recent years.

Hope had only recently returned. Quietly, privately, Savannah had begun considering the possibility of trying again.

That was before the itching escalated into something she could no longer rationalize.

The Appointment That Changed Everything

Savannah called her longtime OB-GYN, Dr. Linda Carter, a physician she had trusted for over a decade. The receptionist remembered her immediately and scheduled an appointment for the following Monday.

By the time Savannah arrived at the clinic, her nerves had settled into something heavier — not panic, but dread.

Exam Room 3 was colder than she remembered. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Dr. Carter, silver-haired and composed, greeted her warmly but moved quickly once Savannah described her symptoms.

“She trusted her instincts,” Dr. Carter later said. “And she was right to.”

Midway through the pelvic exam, Dr. Carter paused.

“I need to step out for a moment,” she said.

When she returned, she was accompanied by two nurses and an ultrasound technician.

Within minutes, a transvaginal ultrasound was underway.

That was when Savannah saw it.

On the edge of the monitor, something moved — not fluid, not tissue.

Alive.

A Diagnosis Rarely Seen in Modern Medicine

Dr. Carter’s voice was steady, but quiet.

“Savannah,” she said, “you are experiencing a condition called urogenital myiasis.”

Myiasis is a parasitic infestation caused by fly larvae — maggots — that feed on living or necrotic tissue. In modern U.S. medicine, it is exceedingly rare, typically associated with severe neglect, environmental exposure, or advanced wounds.

Urogenital myiasis is rarer still.

“Maggots,” Savannah repeated. “Inside me?”

Dr. Carter nodded.

The species was later identified as Lucilia sericata, commonly known as the green bottle fly — a species associated with decaying organic matter.

Savannah was admitted immediately for emergency surgery.

“This was not something that could wait,” Dr. Carter said. “She was already showing signs of internal tissue damage.”

The Surgery That Nearly Came Too Late

What imaging could not fully reveal was how deeply the larvae had burrowed.

During surgery, doctors discovered extensive necrosis in Savannah’s cervical tissue. Several larvae had breached blood vessels, triggering internal bleeding. Her blood pressure dropped. Oxygen saturation plummeted.

“She was going septic,” one surgical nurse recalled.

The procedure lasted nearly three hours. Surgeons removed dozens of larvae, debrided infected tissue, and ultimately removed part of Savannah’s cervix to stop the spread of infection.

“She nearly died,” Dr. Carter said later. “That’s not an exaggeration.”

When Savannah awoke in recovery, she was alive — but the damage was irreversible.

An Impossible Question

“How does this happen?” Savannah asked from her hospital bed.

Dr. Carter hesitated.

“The species we found does not infest healthy tissue spontaneously,” she explained carefully. “The eggs had to be deposited directly. Recently.”

Savannah understood immediately what the doctor was not yet saying aloud.

“You mean someone put them there.”

“There are two possibilities,” Dr. Carter replied. “Direct deposition, or transmission via intimate contact with someone carrying contamination.”

Savannah thought of Marcus. Of the night two weeks earlier when he returned unexpectedly from Atlanta. The wine. The music. The intimacy that felt almost urgent.

Public health authorities were notified. So were the police.

From Medical Emergency to Criminal Investigation

Detective Carla Mendes of the Monroe County Police Department was assigned to the case.

“This wasn’t just a medical anomaly,” Mendes said. “The circumstances suggested possible criminal negligence.”

Savannah told her the truth: Marcus was the only person she had been intimate with in over a year.

Investigators subpoenaed Marcus’s medical records.

What they found raised immediate red flags.

Six weeks earlier, Marcus had been prescribed antibiotics for gonorrhea — a diagnosis he never disclosed to his wife.

Phone records showed frequent weekend trips to Atlanta. Hotel stays. Cash withdrawals.

Then came the break that confirmed investigators’ suspicions.

The Georgia Department of Health identified a recent case at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta: a 28-year-old sex worker admitted with advanced urogenital myiasis. Same species. Same pathology.

Same timeline.

The Confrontation

Savannah called Marcus from her hospital bed.

“I had emergency surgery,” she told him. “They found maggots inside me.”

Silence.

“You gave them to me,” she continued. “The police are involved.”

Marcus denied it. Then hung up.

Three days later, he sat across from Detective Mendes in an interview room.

“You were treated for an STI,” Mendes said. “You failed to disclose it. And your wife nearly died.”

Marcus admitted to multiple encounters with sex workers. He admitted he noticed something was wrong with one woman — odor, pain, darkness.

He admitted he had sex with Savannah anyway.

“I thought if I didn’t say anything, it would go away,” he said.

“It didn’t,” Mendes replied. “It nearly killed her.”

Permanent Consequences

Savannah survived. But she lost her ability to safely carry a pregnancy.

“I knew the odds already,” she said later. “But knowing something is unlikely is different from being told it’s gone.”

Marcus was charged with reckless endangerment, failure to disclose an STI, and criminal negligence resulting in grievous bodily harm.

He later accepted a plea deal: seven years in prison, mandatory offender registration, and enrollment in a state biocriminal negligence program.

A Case That Changed Policy

Savannah chose not to disappear.

Instead, she spoke.

She testified. She partnered with advocacy groups. She helped launch a public-health initiative educating women about consent, disclosure laws, and medical neglect.

Medical schools requested her case study.

Clinics revised intake protocols.

“People think silence is harmless,” Savannah said. “But silence is how harm survives.”

What This Case Reveals

Urogenital myiasis remains rare — but this case exposed something far more common:

Failure to disclose sexually transmitted infections

Medical neglect masked by marital trust

The criminal consequences of silence in intimate relationships

“This wasn’t about a parasite,” Detective Mendes said. “It was about betrayal, negligence, and choice.”

A Life Reclaimed

Today, Savannah lives alone near the river. She fosters. She advocates. She speaks.

In her backyard, a young dogwood tree blooms.

“He let me rot,” she said once. “But I lived.”

When the case of State of Georgia v. Marcus Allen Thompson opened in Monroe County Superior Court, few people expected it to draw national attention. It was not a murder trial. It was not a celebrity case. It involved no weapons.

But it involved something far more unsettling: the slow, silent harm that can occur behind closed doors — and the question of whether silence itself can be criminal.

The courtroom filled quickly. Nurses from Monroe General sat alongside women’s health advocates. Reporters from Atlanta and Savannah lined the back row. Some whispered about the headline already circulating online — a phrase Savannah Thompson despised but understood: “the maggot case.”

Judge Aubrey Harlan, a veteran jurist known for strict sentencing in domestic harm cases, presided.

The prosecution’s argument was precise and restrained.

“This case is not about infidelity,” the assistant district attorney told the jury. “It is about reckless disregard for human life. The defendant knew he carried an active sexually transmitted infection. He knew he had been exposed to a woman suffering from advanced parasitic disease. And he chose silence.”

They did not sensationalize Savannah’s injuries. They did not need to.

The medical records spoke clearly enough.

Evidence That Could Not Be Explained Away

Jurors were shown photographs from Savannah’s surgery — heavily redacted but unmistakable. They heard testimony from Dr. Linda Carter, who explained the rarity of urogenital myiasis in the United States and the impossibility of spontaneous infection in a healthy adult woman.

“The larvae were viable,” Dr. Carter testified. “They were feeding. That does not happen without recent deposition.”

An infectious disease specialist confirmed that Lucilia sericata eggs can be transmitted via direct contact with contaminated clothing, skin, or genital exposure.

Then came the timeline.

Marcus Thompson’s STI diagnosis six weeks prior

Multiple hotel stays in Atlanta’s downtown corridor

A known myiasis case treated at Grady Memorial Hospital during the same period

Savannah’s symptoms beginning within days of renewed intimacy

There was no alternate explanation that fit the facts.

Savannah Takes the Stand

When Savannah Thompson testified, she did not raise her voice.

“I’m a nurse,” she said. “I know what infection looks like. I knew something was wrong. And I trusted the person who slept beside me.”

She described lying awake at night, itching intensifying, wondering whether stress had finally broken her body. She described the ultrasound screen. The movement.

She did not cry when she spoke about the surgery. She paused only once — when the prosecutor asked what she lost.

“My fertility,” Savannah said. “And my sense of safety.”

Then she said something that would later be quoted in medical journals and legal briefs alike.

“I could forgive betrayal,” she told the jury. “I could forgive disease. But I cannot forgive silence that nearly killed me.”

The courtroom remained silent long after she stepped down.

The Defense’s Final Argument — And Why It Failed

Marcus Thompson’s defense did not deny the facts. Instead, they framed his actions as ignorance rather than malice.

“He did not know the full extent of the infection,” his attorney argued. “He did not intend harm.”

But prosecutors countered with Georgia statute.

Intent, they reminded the jury, is not required when reckless disregard for safety is proven.

“You don’t have to want someone dead to endanger their life,” the ADA said. “You just have to choose yourself over their survival.”

The jury deliberated less than four hours.

The verdict: guilty on all counts.

Sentencing and Its Ripple Effect

Marcus Thompson was sentenced to seven years in state prison, with no eligibility for parole during the first four. He was ordered to register in Georgia’s medical endangerment database and complete a state-run rehabilitation program focused on consent, disclosure, and public health law.

Judge Harlan did not mince words.

“You endangered a woman who trusted you,” she said. “This court will not normalize silence as a defense.”

Within weeks, the case was cited in legal seminars across the Southeast.

Why Doctors Say This Case Changed Everything

Until Savannah’s case, most OB-GYNs in the U.S. would never expect to encounter urogenital myiasis outside of humanitarian missions or severe neglect cases.

“This forced a reckoning,” said Dr. Elaine Porter, an infectious disease specialist at Emory University. “Not just medically, but ethically.”

Several hospitals quietly revised protocols:

Mandatory disclosure screening questions for partners

Expanded reporting guidelines for parasitic infections

Automatic public health referral for unexplained gynecological infestations

Medical schools requested Savannah’s case file — anonymized — for training modules on hidden abuse and medical neglect.

“This wasn’t about bugs,” Porter said. “It was about trust as a vector of disease.”

The Hidden Scope of the Problem

Public health officials later confirmed something even more troubling.

Savannah’s case was not unique — just rare enough to be invisible.

According to CDC estimates, dozens of parasitic and bacterial infections linked to undisclosed sexual contact go unreported each year because patients feel shame, disbelief, or fear of legal consequences for loved ones.

“Women are conditioned to protect men’s reputations at the expense of their own health,” said Dr. Renee Collins, a women’s health policy expert. “Savannah refused to do that.”

From Victim to Advocate

Savannah did not retreat from public view.

Instead, she partnered with advocacy groups to launch Speak or Suffer, a community initiative offering:

Free STI testing

Legal counseling on disclosure laws

Trauma-informed medical care referrals

She spoke at clinics, nursing schools, and community centers.

“You don’t have to scream,” she told audiences. “But you cannot stay silent.”

One nineteen-year-old attendee later disclosed abuse for the first time after hearing Savannah speak.

“That’s when I understood,” Savannah said. “This wasn’t just my story anymore.”

Life After the Case

Savannah sold the home she once shared with Marcus. She moved into a small apartment near the river, planted herbs on the windowsill, and adopted a routine that prioritized rest — something she had rarely allowed herself before.

She also began foster care training.

“I couldn’t carry a child,” she said. “But I could still be a safe place.”

In her backyard, she planted a dogwood tree — slow-growing, resilient.

A Broader Legal Impact

Within a year of the verdict, Georgia lawmakers proposed clarifying language around criminal liability for undisclosed STI transmission and medically dangerous exposure.

Savannah testified during committee hearings.

“Silence is not neutral,” she told legislators. “It’s a decision.”

The bill passed committee review.

Marcus Thompson Today

Marcus Thompson remains incarcerated. Prison officials confirmed he was placed in protective housing due to threats from other inmates.

“He’s isolated,” one official said. “Not as punishment — as necessity.”

Savannah has not responded to his letters.

What This Case Leaves Behind

Savannah Thompson survived something few physicians expect to see — and even fewer women live to report.

Her case now appears in:

Medical ethics textbooks

Public health policy briefings

Legal training seminars

But Savannah says none of that was her goal.

“I just wanted to live,” she said. “And once I did, I wanted the truth to live too.”

A Final Image

One spring morning, Savannah stepped onto her porch and noticed a single white blossom on the dogwood tree she planted months earlier.

It was small. Fragile.

Alive.

“I was invaded,” she said once. “But I’m not defined by what tried to consume me.”