HONOLULU -- A Honolulu man is near death after falling into waters contaminated by the massive sewage spill in the Ala Wai Canal. His friends said they are convinced the polluted water in the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor made him sick.

How the man went into the dirty Ala Wai Harbor is not clear. It happened last week. There may have been some kind of altercation. However, he is gravely ill now with a flesh-eating bacteria infection, according to his friends.

Oliver Johnson, 34, was fit and healthy, a surfer and runner.

Thursday night he was walking near the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor and somehow fell in. He was cut and bruised and soaked in the sewage-infested water.

The city had been pumping nearly 50 millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Ala Wai Canal for days.

He went to the emergency room and was bandaged and cleaned up. Friends don't know if he told doctors he had been in contaminated water.

"All I know is: he went in, he got cleaned up, he went home," Johnson's friend, Stephanie Sofos, said.

Two days later, he felt ill and had trouble breathing. An ambulance took him back to Queen's Medical Center.

"Within three hours his body has expanded, his liver shut down, his kidney has shut down, he's in full-blown pneumonia and they have to intubate him," Sofos said. "By Monday they had to amputate his left leg."

Doctors said he has flesh-eating bacteria, according to friends. His friends are convinced it's because of the sewage in the water.

"Everybody, don't go into the water. Wait," Sofos said.

Doctors do not expect Johnson to survive, according to his friends. They said he is in gravely critical condition. Friends told KITV that police are investigating how he wound up in the harbor.