The death of a 5-year-old Nashville boy who had the H1N1 virus has put parents on alert to look for the slightest signs that their child might be sick.
Max Gomez, who was a student at Henry Maxwell Elementary School in Antioch, became ill Friday and was admitted to Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt on Monday. He died the same day. The state testing lab confirmed Wednesday that the boy had the H1N1 virus.
An initial autopsy did not indicate other health problems, though results will not be final for another 60 days.
Jackson County announced Tuesday that H1N1 killed an 11-year-old Oak Grove boy in October.
Jordan Smith, a fifth grader at Maple Elementary, died from complications of the influenza A infection. His manner of death was natural, according to a Jackson County spokesman.
Smith died on Oct. 18 from an undisclosed illness. At the time, it was suspected that H1N1 played a part in his death but an official cause of death wasn't known until the Jackson County Medical Examiner's Office conducted an autopsy.
A 4-year-old girl has been confirmed as the county's first child H1N1 swine flu-related death, though state health officials say flu was not the cause of death.
Haight said the child was on the mend when unrelated medical issues arose. Having the flu at the time did not help her health but is not the reason she died, he said.
"In these kinds of situations, it is not really clear what exactly could have caused the death," but because it happened while she had the flu it is included in the statewide count, he said.
Hailee Merritt spent 19 days on a ventilator or oscillator, spending much of the time heavily sedated with a breathing tube down her throat. Doctors were administering five kinds of medication for the pain and possible infections. Her condition waivered dramatically as doctors struggled to help.
"After we got there, an entire wing was devoted to swine flu," said Bridie Merritt. "We were watching people get progressively worse. One patient passed away while we were there."
Bridie Merritt said doctors have been unable to determine why her daughter became so ill so quickly. There was no underlying medical issue or any family medical history which would explain why the H1N1 virus caused so much harm so quickly.
This does not say if he was at risk. If he wasn't then he would not have been offered the vax
that could have saved him from being another one of the random deaths of perfectly healthy
people.
First Year UVa Darden Business student Justin Key died unexpectedly on Monday, December 14th. According to the Christian University he attended for undergraduate studies, Key died from a bad case of the H1N1 Swine Flu virus.
The Scriptorium, the Torrey Institute's online newspaper, says that Key woke up unable to move on Monday, and immediately called 911. They say doctors reported that Justin had a case of the Swine Flu, and that is what ultimately took his life.
With at least 800 confirmed cases of the flu in students at UVA, the university has made available an estimated 38 hundred doses of the vaccination to at-risk students in recent weeks.
Nicholas Bolin, 9, a fourth grade student at South Bosque Elementary School has died of complications from swine flu, family members confirmed Tuesday.
The Air Force crew and medical personnel later flew Nicholas to San Antonio, where he was taken to Christus Santa Rose and placed on a permanent ECMO machine.
He died there around 12:30 a.m. Monday.
He would have celebrated his 10th birthday on Dec. 30.
Keith Worthington is lying in a pediatric intensive-care unit bed, breathing with the aid of a machine and battling for his life.
The diagnosis turned out to be swine flu, the H1N1 virus, compounded by pneumonia and a bacterial infection. His lungs filled with fluids and suffered damage.
Another complication: The strain of bacteria is resistant to antibiotics. His condition is critical and unstable.
Although autistic, Keith had no underlying health conditions, such as asthma, before the flu struck. That meant he wasn't in the
first group to be targeted for the vaccine, which was unavailable before he got sick, his mother said.
Now, however, he has a lot of healing to do. His doctors aren't certain whether damage to his lungs is permanent. It has been difficult to wean him from the ventilator, Sam-Agudu said.
A Henry County teenager died last week from complications of H1N1 influenza, the Henry County Health Department said yesterday.
The teen had been hospitalized in critical condition for several weeks, first in the Toledo area and then out of state, said Anne Goon, Henry County health commissioner. She declined to be more specific because of privacy concerns.
A 16-year-old Calgary boy who had been in a coma after getting a serious infection from Swine Flu has died, his devastated grandmother confirmed Tuesday night.
Michael Gorbous had been on life-support since Nov. 2 when he was admitted to hospital. By the time he was rushed to hospital in an ambulance Michael had severe pneumonia in both lungs and he was placed on an ECMO machine that helped him breathe.
The grade-11 boy never came out of the coma, said his grandmother Fay Gorbous.
"He passed away at 4 a.m., they phoned me after six to tell me," she said in an interview. "The doctors and nurses at that hospital were wonderful, they did everything they possibly could."
Virginia Tech graduate Bill Humphrey was so committed to becoming a veterinarian, he wouldn't stop studying even as he lay in a hospital bed hooked to a ventilator.
Humphrey thought he had recovered, but then became so ill before Thanksgiving that he was hospitalized, first at Montgomery Regional Hospital and then at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond.
It's unclear if Humphrey suffered from the H1N1 virus, or so-called swine flu. But Burke Humphrey said his son developed severe respiratory complications that eventually took his life.
First-year Darden student Justin Key died Dec. 14 from a blood clot to the lungs. A memorial service will be held Thursday at 6 p.m. in Abbott Auditorium.
The blood clot that caused Key's death came after several weeks of illness with H1N1, said Christy Bell, assistant director of general medicine at Student Health and Key's physician.
"Recent research has shown a higher than expected number of cases of lung blood clots in those hospitalized with swine flu," she said, adding that researchers are looking into whether blood clots could potentially explain sudden deaths in other young healthy people ill with H1N1.
People with a severe case of the pandemic H1N1 flu are at elevated risk of pulmonary embolism, researchers said.
Contrast-enhanced CT scans showed pulmonary emboli in five of 14 patients admitted to intensive care at a major university hospital during the spring wave of the pandemic, according to Prachi Agarwal, MD, and colleagues at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Such pulmonary artery blockages are rarely seen in association with seasonal flu, the researchers said, suggesting that physicians should keep a close watch for them.
"Our study suggests that patients who are severely ill with H1N1 are also at risk for developing [pulmonary embolism], which should be carefully sought for on contrast-enhanced CT scans," Agarwal said in a statement.
The finding was part of a retrospective analysis of imaging results from 66 patients treated from May 1 to July 18 at the University of Michigan Health System.
They were divided into two groups -- the 14 who required ventilation in intensive care and 52 who did not. Five of the first group died, the researchers said. There were no deaths in the second group.
Patients who required ventilation were older -- 43.5 on average versus 22.1, a difference that was significant at P=0.000002.
They were also more likely to be male -- 11 of the 14 were men, compared with 25 of 52 in the other group.
indigo girl
5,173 Posts
Oak Grove, Missouri
http://www.examiner.net/news/x730415387/Cause-of-boys-death-confirmed-H1N
This is the child from post #68.
(hat tip flutrackers/shiloh)