Local woman shares battle with Legionnaires’
KESQ & CBS Local 2 is going in-depth on Legionnaires’ disease after two swimming pools in a 55+ community in Palm Springs tested positive for the bacteria.
Last month, pools at the Four Seasons were closed after two people became infected with Legionnaires’ disease. People 50 and older, and young children, are at a higher risk of contracting the disease.
“They had already brought in a priest to give me the last rights because they really didn’t think I was going to live,” said Merilynn Hurd, a resident of Sky Valley.
Hurd said she went from the intensive care unit to isolation for four weeks, running a fever of 104 degrees every day. Hurd said she was diagnosed in 1981. The first case was reported in Pennsylvania in 1976.
“They had to keep me on pain medication. This disease, when it hit me, the doctor called it, ‘the devil’s grip,’ and it felt like someone was trying to take all of my lungs and what not out of the side of my throat,” Hurd said.
Hurd said doctors believed she contracted the disease after drinking out of a public drinking fountain in Portland, Oregon. She was battling pneumonia when she got Legionnaires’, which doctors believe is how she may have fell ill.
A compromised immune system is one factor in developing Legionnaires’, according to a local pharmacist Diane Nguyen.
“Cancer patients, HIV/AIDS patients, or the people who have transplants, because they’re taking a lot of medications that suppress their immune systems. So these people would be at a high risk for getting the disease,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen added that the bacteria breeds in warm temperatures.
“During the summer, we can hit 114, 117 degrees. So, stagnant water you don’t want to have, or if you have a humidifier, you want to clean that out often, as well as the pool, they have filter systems, so they should look into those areas,” Nguyen said.
According to the Department of Public Health, there are only three to four cases of Legionnaires’ reported each year.
As far as the Four Seasons goes, the swimming pools there are in the process of being disinfected and next week there will be preliminary testing before the pools are inspected. The pools are expected to be back open by August.
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Noticias en español: Telemundo 15
