We’ve had plenty of rain this summer, which has made mosquito-borne illnesses more common.
The insects have been testing positive for viruses, and so have several people in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, including a woman in her 30s in Plymouth County who had EEE.
One man in Rochester, Massachusetts had a first-hand experience with Eastern Equine Encephalitis, or EEE.
In August 2006, Derek Ashworth was a healthy 23-year-old, playing semi-pro football for the Middleborough Cobras. One day after a game he was bitten by a mosquito. A few days later, he developed severe headaches and collapsed at work on a construction job.
“Someone was able to catch my head before it hit the concrete slab I was on, that’s when I had a seizure, and I went to the hospital,” explained Derek Ashworth.
The next day he had another seizure and his condition worsened quickly.
“It was pretty devastating, I wouldn’t wish it on anybody,” said Derek’s dad, Scott Ashworth.
Doctors told Scott his only child had encephalitis, brain swelling, and his son fell into a coma for a week.
“They were going to have a conversation with us about pulling the plug, taking him off life support. It was a long ride to Boston and when we got there that day, the nurses were kind of in a good mood, they were kind of laughing and we said what’s going on? They said well he opened his eyes last night and he’s starting to come to. We never expected that,” said Ashworth.
Against the odds, Derek opened his eyes.
“I saw my family crying around me and I was crying, when they told me what it was I never heard of such a thing, I had been bitten by mosquitoes plenty of times throughout my life, never thought there was a virus you could get that would make you sick, give you encephalitis,” said Ashworth.
Ashworth says he was one of three people in southeastern Massachusetts to get EEE that year.
“The three of us got hit with it, two of us died, one of us didn’t,” said Ashworth solemnly.
18 years later, Ashworth now has a wife and three kids of his own.
His family still enjoys the outdoors, but they take precautions.
“There’s nothing that’s going to keep us from being outside, we just to make sure at certain times if there’s a heavy amount of mosquitoes around, maybe it’s time to come indoors, long sleeves, bug spray,” explained Ashworth.
“You can’t live your life in fear, but you need to take precautions, and you need to know about it, because to me if you don’t, you’re just rolling the dice,” said Scott Ashworth.
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Publish date : 2024-08-30 06:26:00
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