No Prior Existing Conditions but Dead Anyway

[indigo girl]

http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/48007842.html

Who would think that a normally healthy woman would die so swiftly from influenza in June?

Could you ever have imagined such a thing? No wonder her family and friends are in shock.

So why did it happen?

Barbara Davis, 48, was healthy just a week ago. She had dinner with her mother Josephine last Friday night. But just hours after that dinner, Josephine got a phone call.

"My friend, he called me and told me Barbara was real sick. And I said, "Well, she wasn't sick when I left, so what's the matter?" Josephine Davis said.

Barbara told her mother that she was ok. But the next day, things got worse. She had trouble breathing, and she was shaking. She could barely walk into the hospital.

"She tried to talk to people, but she just couldn't talk," Josephine Davis said.

Doctors treated her for two days, but they couldn't save her. They believe she died from swine flu.

"They've never seen nothing like that, what she had. That infection just went through her body, attacking her kidney, her lungs, her liver. Everything," said Josephine Davis.

The Milwaukee Health Department confirmed on Friday a Milwaukee adult with no underlying medical conditions died from swine flu, though they haven't confirmed Barbara Davis was that victim.

Barbara's family knows all too well how serious swine flu can be.

"Everybody is just in a shock. The people that I talked to today, they are frightened. Because it happened all of a sudden," Josephine Davis said.

More than 1,800 people have caught swine flu in Milwaukee alone. The city's Health Department is stressing that if you are mildly ill with flu symptoms, you should call your doctor. If your symptoms are serious or if you have mild symptoms that are getting worse, you should see a doctor right away.

http://www.wisn.com/health/19751526/detail.html

The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner said 48-year-old Barbara Davis died Thursday in the ICU after being diagnosed with the flu strain.

The health department said, unlike Milwaukee's first swine flu victim, Davis did not have any "underlying medical conditions" that would have put her at a greater risk for the disease.

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showpost.php?p=248304&postcount=7

This post was written by Dr. Gratten Woodsen, MD commenting over at flutrackers on this unfortunate woman's case.

The decedent is described as having fulminate multi-organ failure that developed rapidly resulting in death 48 hours after onset and despite intensive medical therapy in an ICU including all the bells and whistles.

The attending physicians told the mother that they had never seen anything like this before and I believe them. So did she. No one has seen anything like this since 1918. In 1918 many doctors said the say thing after dealing with their first cases of Spanish Flu and for them too it was a great surprise at least until those that didn't die from the virus themselves had seen it so many times that it was no longer unique.

There are numerous descriptions from the 1918 pandemic that match the one above but no where else in medical history do we find anything remotely similar. This is why the doctors in Milwaukee were so shocked by what they saw.

How many other North American victims had similar pathology? Why have the autopsy and clinical findings from the deaths in Mexico, the US and Canada been suppressed?

I know from press reports that there have been other US deaths where multi-organ failure was present. Is this common among those who have died of Swine Flu or rare? Are the findings similar to those seen in 1918 or not?

(hat tip flutrackers/skatman)

[Purple_Scrubs, BSN, RN]

Wow, that 8 year old boy became "seriously ill" on wednesday and was not hospitalized until friday!?! I wonder if swifter intervention could have saved him. I think I will be insisting that the kids that come to my office with flu-like s/s get to a doctor, especially when school starts this fall.

As for the woman with no underlying conditions...scary indeed. Come on with the vaccine! Although I wonder who will be in line to get it first. HCP? And if so, will I as school nurse be counted among them? So many unanswered questions, and I too am dreading the fall.

[indigo girl]

Milwaukee teen is latest swine flu fatality in Wisconsin

http://www.fox6now.com/news/witi-090617-swine-flu-teen-death,0,1839694.story

Fourteen-year-old Tiara Mosely-Forrest died two weeks after being rushed to Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, unable to breathe. But her uncle, Vernon Mosely, tells FOX 6 News Tiara went from being a healthy high school sophomore to the latest H1N1 Swine Flu Virus fatality.

The 14-year-old had a complete physical, blood tests and immunizations in May. The doctor told her the she was in good health.

Tiara first started complaining of chest pain in late May. The pain got so bad her brothers had to rush her home from the movies May 31. By late evening June 1, she could not walk on her own.

She spent the last two weeks of her life on a ventilator in the intensive care unit, where doctors eventually confirmed she had the H1N1 Swine Flu Virus.

Her mother says Tiara died June 15 from influenza, pneumonia in the lungs, a staph infection and multiple organ failure.

[indigo girl]

http://www.jsonline.com/features/health/48294837.html

This is tough to read, but this is how it is. It is painful to hear these stories, but it also makes it real for us. This is what has been happening in Mexico/Indonesia and Egypt. But, it's also happening in Salt Lake City, NYC, and Milwaukee...

I wonder, did they give her Tamiflu when she went to the hospital the first time?

I would like to see all of our young people get the pneumovax. I would like for all of us who will be caring for these patients to do this also.

... "she just lay in the hallway," said her mother, Edwina Mosely-Forrest. "I noticed that her fingertips were cold. They'd turned gray."

Mosely-Forrest offered to drive her to the hospital.

"No, Mom," the girl said. "Just call 911."

After returning to Children's Hospital by ambulance on June 1, Tiara Mosely never left, and on Monday night, after a two-week struggle, she died, the third Wisconsin resident to succumb to swine flu.

[indigo girl]

Health officials can't explain SD swine flu death

http://www.modbee.com/state/story/748868.html

SAN DIEGO -- San Diego County health officials are investigating the swine flu death of a 20-year-old Escondido woman, trying to determine why the virus quickly became fatal to a seemingly healthy person.

Palomar Medical Center director Dr. Don Herip said Wednesday that the woman, identified by the coroner's office as Adela Chevalier, began experiencing mild flu symptoms on Friday, including a cough and fatigue. He says by Monday she was running a high fever, having trouble breathing and suffering severe muscle aches. She died at the hospital's emergency room later that night.

County health officials say tests also were being conducted Wednesday night on a specimen taken from a young man who died recently. They suspect he also was infected with swine flu.

[mama_d, BSN, RN]

The swine flu death we had at our hospital was a man in his early 40's, no pre-existing conditions, heath nut who went into multi-system organ failure and died two weeks after being hospitalized. His lungs were so full of fluid that he was on a special bed that rotated him constantly in an attempt to help ventilation. They coded him over and over again, and each time he came back he was a little worse off, until they just coudn't bring him back. RT said that they went through four code carts on him that last night.

[indigo girl]

The swine flu death we had at our hospital was a man in his early 40's, no pre-existing conditions, heath nut who went into multi-system organ failure and died two weeks after being hospitalized. His lungs were so full of fluid that he was on a special bed that rotated him constantly in an attempt to help ventilation. They coded him over and over again, and each time he came back he was a little worse off, until they just coudn't bring him back. RT said that they went through four code carts on him that last night.

Don't want to raise any privacy issues here, but I have two questions for you if you would:

What is your location? And, would you happen to know if the cause of death was considered to be swine flu?

I suspect the number of deaths from swine flu has been masked by dx of pneumonia or ARDS or whatever so that we are not getting a true picture of the number of deaths in which influenza is the real cause.

[Purple_Scrubs, BSN, RN]

Indigo girl, do you know if there have been any deaths in patients who were given Tamiflu?

I am working summer school and still seeing febrile, flu-like illnesses on an almost daily basis. IMO my community is taking this way too lightly. These kids that I send home are not being seen by an MD, the parents just wait it out. I am really REALLY dreading this fall.

[indigo girl]

Indigo girl, do you know if there have been any deaths in patients who were given Tamiflu?

I am working summer school and still seeing febrile, flu-like illnesses on an almost daily basis. IMO my community is taking this way too lightly. These kids that I send home are not being seen by an MD, the parents just wait it out. I am really REALLY dreading this fall.

Certainly, there has to have been because people have died in the ICU from this. If they know that they are treating influenza, then they are giving Tamiflu. The real question to ask is, at what point was Tamiflu tx started. We know that it is most effective in the first 48 hours of tx. But you cannot always save every person despite giving Tamiflu if their lungs are too damaged.

We are not hearing about Tamiflu resistance yet if that is what you are concerned about.

We are reading about people sent home from the ER after being treated with tylenol only to die a few days later. No tamiflu for them because they did not look sick enough when first seen. Can you imagine the lawsuits when this is all over?

It is now obvious also that certain information is being censored. We all know that information about cases can be given without violating privacy. But, what we are seeing in some places, Utah comes to mind, is that officials are choosing not to divulge disturbing facts regarding severe cases.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_12623865

This is a very unsettling trend, and is not unlike the censorship that we are seeing in Indonesia where we must depend on grieving family members talking to the media to know that someone who was previously healthy has died from influenza. Only this is not Indonesia. This is here in our own country, and we pay the salaries of the public health officials that are deciding what, or what not to tell us about recent deaths.

Utah's reason for doing this? They don't want people to become complacent. How could anyone be complacent about previously healthy kids and young adults dying so suddenly?

If they don't tell you pre-existing health conditions then you will have no idea how many will have died that had none.

[indigo girl]

Family member disputes claim 9-year-old boy had asthma

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Swine-Flu-Victim-a-Healthy-Boy-Family.html

The family sounds like they were attentive. Is it really possible that no one noticed asthmatic symptoms before he came down with influenza? I am finding this very difficult to believe. The doctor or his stafff would have had to educate the family about this when the child was seen the first time.

And the comment about the child not being contagious when he attended school may or may not be true. You can be contagious prior to showing symptoms with influenza so it depends on when he started to show s/s. Kids also shed virus longer than adults do after recovery. Much longer according to research, which becomes a real problem for spreading infection if we send them back to school too soon.

Family members of the only swine flu fatality in the state said the child was a "healthy boy" and that the family was unaware the boy suffered from asthma.

Luis Alexandro Munoz, 9, died on June 9 from complications caused by the H1N1 virus, Health Department officials announced Tuesday. Health officials have been secretive about the identity of the child and the circumstances surrounding the death.

The family did not learn about Munoz's asthma condition until the Health Department's releases statement on the death on Tuesday, a week after the boy's death, his uncle said Thursday.

But Claudio Munoz said the family took Munoz to the hospital after he fell ill just days before he died. The family thought the child had bronchitis, but a family doctor who examined Munoz sent him back home with some medication. Once back home, Munoz's condition worsened rapidly and the family rushed the boy to the emergency room at Baptist Hospital, where he died less than 24 hours later.

Miami-Dade Health Department and School Board officials have declined to comment on the issue.

In the press release announcing the state's first swine flu death, the Heath Department does state "the child was not contagious when he attended the school," but does not name the school.

[indigo girl]

Oak Forest 8-year-old dies from swine flu

http://www.southtownstar.com/news/1628598,061809swine.article

Last Friday an 8-year-old boy from Oak Forest was being checked into a local hospital. Just one day later, Saturday, he was dead from the H1N1 virus or swine flu, Cook County health officials announced Wednesday.

The boy had no underlying health conditions besides the virus, officials said, but the agency is awaiting results from an autopsy to be sure.

The death of the boy marks the eighth in the state, including two people last week who lived in Chicago.

County health officials declined to release further information on the boy, citing privacy concerns.

"This tragic death underscores the need for people to remain vigilant in preventing the spread of illness," said Stephen A. Martin Jr., chief operating officer of the Cook County Department of Public Health.

A 26-year-old woman with no other known health problems died June 9 after being in a Chicago hospital for a week.

(hat tip flutrackers/jenniferSmiles)

[mama_d, BSN, RN]

Indigo,

I'll just put here what you could read in the news article, that way no privacy issues :)

It was definitely swine flu, he was vacationing in Mexico and became symptomatic shortly after returning home. He was one of those people who went to the doctor for check ups, didn't smoke, didn't drink, etc.

Honestly, having it happen at my hospital just drove home the point for me that people may not be taking this as seriously as they should. It quit being something that happened somewhere else, know what I mean?

[RedWeasel, RN]

Our hospital needs a wakeup call. A loud one. It just isn't being thought of. People with fevers and coughs--oh it must be chf. What?