CLINICAL CASE STUDY A Fatal Case of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) SEM Methicillin-resistant S. aureus A five-year-old girl was admitted to the hospital with a temperature of 103F and pain in her right hip. After pus was surgically drained from the hip joint, she was treated with a semisynthetic cephalosporin. Her physi- cians changed the antibiotic regimen after 24-hour cultures of blood and pus revealed the presence of MRSA. On the third day, she suffered respiratory failure and empyema and was placed on mechanical ventilation. She died from pulmonary hemorrhage and pneumonia after five weeks of hospitalization. The girl had been previously healthy with no recent hospitalizations. She had skinned her knee while learning to ride a bicycle two days before admittance to the hospital. 1. How might the girl have been infected? 2. How did her hip joint become infected? 3. Describe the series of diseases she suffered. 4. What was likely the second antibiotic she received?