I'm guessing it's a mutation of the original 2000 legend spreading.
It's hard to search on, but glowing wounds comes up blank pre-2000 AFAICS.
It'd be interesting to interview the original kids, pretty sure it's a clever hack.
It's possible having mum in glowing bacteria means they might hear things differently and accidently caused the legend, but still, I'd like to think they were crafty.
It's also a great example how people just don't fact check stuff no matter how out there it is. Science has a long way to go.