PANAMA CITY, Fla. (AP) - Panama City medical examiners say a man
who died following a high-speed police chase had a rare form of
cholera-causing bacterium.

Steven M. Harrison was unconscious in the back seat of a car that led police on a Sept. 23 chase. Sheriff's officials were initially warned Harrison may have had a different flesh-eating bacterial disease.

Medical examiners said Monday he instead had vibrio vulnificus, a bacterium usually caused by raw seafood. He was susceptible to infection because of a weak liver.

According to the Center for Disease Control, the bacterium is rare but most prominent in the Gulf Coast states, where more than 900 cases were reported from 1988 to 2006.

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