Rhiza Labs FluTracker Forum

The father of a Cary High School student who died at UNC last week says his daughter died from complications from the flu.

Roy Taylor said his 18-year-old daughter Katie went to WakeMed for dehydration after being sick for about a week.

He said she experienced low blood pressure and fluctuating heart rate so they did a heart catheterization. She was rushed to UNC where she died a few hours later.

Taylor - who said he's worked as a EMT for 30 years - said that doctors told the family that the H1N1 virus attacked Katie's heart muscle. He explained that in some cases, antibodies that are supposed to fight the flu virus instead start attacking the organ where it lands, and in his daughter’s case, it was her heart.

Katie Taylor turned 18 in December. She learned just two weeks ago that she had been accepted to Meredith College and was going to receive $8,000 a year in scholarship money. She hoped to become a veterinarian.

Health officials say high school and college students are the least likely to receive flu vaccines. For more on where to get one, go to http://www.findaflushot.com/

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?secti ... id=7943727

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http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?secti ... id=7946898

Flu spike in the Heart of Carolina

Hospitals across the state are seeing a growing number of flu cases this year.

According to national reports, across America the 2011 flu season is the worst in two years.

In 2009, free flu clinics helped lessen the threat of a flu pandemic.

However, Allison Dupont says she got a flu shot this year after being quarantined with H1N1 last year and she still got sick.

"I just felt awful," Dupont said. "I literally could not move. I couldn't breathe well, because I was coughing so hard and so much. I was having trouble sleeping. I just felt awful."

Still she says she believes the flu shot helped keep her from getting worse and ending up in the hospital.

And doctors say this year they're seeing more patients with flu symptoms, who did get vaccinated.

"We are seeing a lot of people with flu and other complications, pneumonia, bronchitis fatigue and we are seeing too much. We are about to bust," said Terry Whitney with Lakewood Urgent Care Clinic.

Wake Med and other hospitals around the Heart of Carolina have seen a rise in flu cases and UNC, Rex, Cape Fear Valley and Betsy Johnson Memorial reported seeing a steady increase to a spike in cases since mid-January.

"The traffic over the last two days has been unbelievable," Cape Fear Valley Medical Center ER Dr. Scott Miekley said. "We have literally had hundreds of patients come to the ER Department and really taxing our system."

For more details on the number of cases hospitals are seeing, click here. [at link below]

http://dig.abclocal.go.com/wtvd/docs/02 ... umbers.pdf