Back in July of 2018, Michael Dumas headed to Florida on a mission trip with friends, and he decided to spend two days having fun on Pompano Beach. As they played on the beach, Michael and his friends took turns playfully burying each other up to their necks in sand while snapping photos of their antics. It was only when Michael returned home to Tennessee that he realized something had gone very wrong on the beach while he was there.

Michael began experiencing painful symptoms that included bad earaches and odd bumps forming under the skin of his legs. Doctors quickly realized that as Michael was buried in the sand on the beach, hookworms were burying themselves into his feet and causing red, itchy, and infected sores on his body. In the end, six out of the seventeen people were infected with parasites from that weekend.

Afterwards, Michael’s mother Candy Sims took to Facebook to warn others about what happened.

“He was buried in the sand for fun and it has become our nightmare,” she wrote.

A single mother, Candy added that she’s had to pay thousands of dollars for his treatment.

“We have no idea how long this is going to take to heal but he has taken four antibiotics, two antiparasitics and a steroid pack and he is going to be permanently scarred from this situation,” she said. “I don’t want anyone else to unknowingly have the same disease happen to them.”

Find out more about this in the video below.