A Connecticut man died Monday after a five-year battle with a virus he contracted from a mosquito bite, cable outlet News 12 Connecticut reported.
Richard Pawulski, 49, succumbed to Eastern equine encephalitis, a rare brain-infecting virus with potential lifelong complications, including seizures and paralysis, for its survivors, according to Harvard Medical School.
Roughly 30 percent of EEE cases are deadly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Such a virus was probably the last thing the Pawulskis, like any family, would have expected to face.
“I’m not joking when I say your life can change in the blink of an eye, because that was what happened to us,” his daughter, Amellia Pawulski, 18, told the New York Post.
The ordeal began in August 2019, when Pawulski fell ill after doing some yard work.
Not long after discovering a mosquito bite, he complained of intense headaches and began spewing yellow bile, the New York Post reported.
Pawulski had emergency surgery, where doctors tried to reduce his brain swelling, but complications put the man into a two-month coma.
Connecticut dad dies from rare mosquito-borne virus he caught in his own backyard – and cases are on the rise https://t.co/m0X7D6ilfL pic.twitter.com/rsonBkxpI9
— New York Post (@nypost) October 16, 2024
Doctors eventually gave Pawulski’s daughter and his wife, Margaret, the choice of whether to keep him on life support.
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Considering the brain damage that doctors said had likely occurred, the family opted to pull the plug.
In the nick of time, however, Richard awoke and began to speak.
But after enduring the next five years in hospitals and nursing homes, and after enduring a brain injury, vital organ complications, seizures and repeated pneumonia, Pawulski lost the battle.
“He always tried to look at the positive,” Amelia Pawulski told the New York Post. “I remember people being like, ‘Oh, how’s your day?’ And he was like, ‘My day is great. I woke up. I can breathe on my own. I can talk on my own. I can go to the bathroom on my own. I have no reason to be upset.’”
Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) is a rare but severe viral disease currently circulating in New York and spread by infected mosquitoes. EEE can affect people and horses. pic.twitter.com/yv3PCf5YUW
— New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation (@NYSDEC) October 12, 2024
There are neither vaccines nor medicines to prevent or treat EEE, according to the CDC.
On average, 11 cases of EEE are reported annually in the U.S.
There have been 16 cases so far in 2024.
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