As countless reports have reflected, a fatal flu season is upon us.
From a mom who lost her perfectly healthy 27-year-old daughter to a father who lost his vibrant 7-year-old two days after she complained of a sore throat, parents across America are grieving the loss of children taken too soon by 2018’s deadly strain of influenza. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported in mid-January that the death toll for children had reached thirty this flu season, and that number is steadily rising.
But this unrelenting virus is not only targeting youth. Fifty-one-year-old Brian Herndon recently lost both his feet and nine fingers after going into septic shock from flu complications.
“One minute you’ve got the flu and the next minute you’re septic,” the Texas father told WFAA via Skype on Sunday.
On January 4, Brian was diagnosed with the flu; the next day, he came down with pneumonia and went into septic shock.
According to Medical News Today, septic shock “occurs when an overwhelming infection leads to life-threatening low blood pressure.” When blood pressure drops, blood flow is reduced to the vital organs which can lead to organ failure, other serious injury, and even death.
Septic shock is “most common in people who are already affected by illnesses that weaken the immune system”—but similar to many cases reported in recent months, Brian had no preexisting medical problems that would have made him more prone to such severe complications.
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“He had a 104.7 temperature right away,” said his wife Jaye. “And then he had trouble breathing. We didn’t wait, we went to the ER. It was that quick.”