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Contaminated
Well Water
Family's trauma with water parasite attracts attention of TV
OSU family
infected with rare intestinal disease through contaminated well water
By Amy Schneider
The Daily Barometer
-
www.dailybarometer.com - Issue
date: 2/12/10 Section:
News
For OSU student Jenni Hastings and her
3-year-old daughter, a seemingly standard bout with the flu turned into
an ordeal big enough to attract the attention of a major television
network.
Hastings, a junior in natural resources and resident of Jefferson, Ore.,
was attending summer classes at OSU when her daughter became violently
ill with flu-like symptoms in early July of 2009. Over the next few
days, Hastings continued to call her general practitioner, who told her
there was no cause for concern.
"I actually took her in to see the doctor on Friday, and they said it
was just the flu," Hastings said. "On Monday she wasn't walking, eating
or drinking, and I knew something wasn't adding up."
Meanwhile, Hastings' husband, Steve Hastings, was succumbing to similar
symptoms.
"I had terrible vomiting and diarrhea that felt like it was taking every
ounce of fluid out of my body," Steve Hastings said. "The next night I
was in the hospital. I didn't have any energy, and I just lied there
shaking."
A second trip to the general practitioner landed the Hastings' daughter
in the hospital as well. After three days on IV fluids and a blood test
that suggested a viral illness, the 3-year-old was sent home.
However, the struggle for the young girl's health was still far from
over.
"By Thursday morning she was throwing up in cycles again and having
severe diarrhea," Jenni Hastings said. "That was the point where she
started being in pain, and it was so hard to watch. No one wants to see
their 3-year-old daughter unable to even get up and walk."
Further dealings with their doctor proved unsuccessful, and the doctor
only answered Hastings' calls with a request to stop overreacting.
Frustrated with the lack of response and desperate to stop her
daughter's suffering, Hastings decided to take her to Legacy Emanuel
Hospital in Portland.
"The car ride there was something I'll never forget," Jenni Hastings
said. "I looked in the rearview mirror at my daughter and I could
basically see that death was imminent. She was looking at me, but she
wasn't really there, and it was all I could do to keep it together and
get to the hospital before it was too late."
The medical staff at Legacy Emanuel
immediately admitted the Hastings' daughter and determined that she had
lost a third of her body weight over the course of two weeks. After
giving the 3-year-old a heavy dose of fluids and a morphine drip for the
pain, the pediatricians set to work diagnosing the source of the little
girl's illness.
"The people at Emanuel were the nicest doctors and hospital staff that
I've ever dealt with," Steve Hastings said. "They know how to deal with
children who are in pain, and they understand that it's stressful to
have strangers poking and prodding them."
A few days passed, and the Hastings were finally given a diagnosis,
although the results proved to be surprising.
"They told me, 'Your daughter is infected with cryptosporidium,' and I
heard it but could barely even process it," Jenni Hastings said. "I
wondered what it was and how my daughter could have been exposed to it."
According to
www.cdc.gov, cryptosporidiosis is a
water-born intestinal disease that is caused by the microscopic parasite
cryptosporidium, otherwise known as "crypto." Common symptoms include
stomach cramps, weight loss, dehydration and vomiting. It can be spread
by coming into contact with infected stool or drinking contaminated
water.
Once a positive diagnosis was made, it took several days for the
anti-parasitic medication to be flown into Oregon. By this point, Steve
and Jenni Hastings had both fallen victim to symptoms of
cryptosporidiosis. The EPA and the CDC became involved in attempting to
determine the origin of the infection.
"After the EPA investigator determined that we hadn't been exposed to
crypto outside our house, she wanted to test our water," Jenni Hastings
said. "She took samples from our well, letting the water run for 10
minutes and taking samples from the house so that she wouldn't miss
anything."
The water turned out to contain not only cryptosporidium, but three
different strains of E. coli as well. It was hypothesized that the hot
July weather caused the ground to swell, which in turn cracked the well
and contaminated the water.
The Hastings family now has a filtration
system with a reverse osmosis membrane and UV lights. Marion County
issued a warning to medical practitioners, but Hastings was unsuccessful
in attempts to get Benton County to alert the public.
"Since I spend so much time in Benton County, I wanted to give the
county permission to contact parents and warn people who had been
exposed to crypto," Jenni Hastings said. "It seemed like the county
wanted to keep things quiet to prevent panic since swine flu was already
such an issue, and they told me due to privacy laws they couldn't
disclose my information."
It wasn't until winter of 2009, well after the entire family had
successfully recovered, that Jenni Hastings decided to share her story
with a well-known television network, and they showed an immediate
interest. The name of the program cannot be disclosed, but filming will
start this week, with the show projected to premier towards the end of
this summer.
"I just want people to know what we've been through," Jenni Hastings
said. "You really cannot be too safe where your children are concerned.
Their lives depend on you and as a parent, you really have to be an
advocate for your own child."
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