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Encephalitis kills a second in Panhandle
©Associated Press
© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 23, 2001
CRESTVIEW -- A second Okaloosa County resident has died of encephalitis within a month, but officials did not immediately know if it was a type of the disease spread by mosquitoes.
Devin Fugett, 21, who lived in a rural area near Crestview, was taken off life support and died Tuesday at West Florida Hospital in Pensacola, his parents said.
Nine-year-old Cody Landsverk of Niceville died July 25 at Sacred Heart Children's Hospital, also in Pensacola, of eastern equine encephalitis, a mosquito-borne virus.
Test results on the type or cause of Fugett's encephalitis were being awaited. West Nile virus, a mosquito-spread disease new to Florida, also can cause encephalitis or meningitis.
Nationwide, five people have been confirmed as positive for West Nile virus, including a 71-year-old Atlanta woman who died Aug. 17. Three of the remaining four cases are from Florida.
Bryan and Pam Fugett said their son started having severe headaches about two weeks ago and went to Fort Walton Beach Medical Center where he was given muscle relaxants that seemed to help.
Several days later he complained that it felt like the left side of his body was asleep, and then he had trouble walking and lost the sight in his left eye.
"It was so sudden and got much, much worse very quickly," Bryan Fugett said.
His condition grew progressively worse, his father said. For several days he slipped in and out of consciousness. He suffered a massive stroke Monday.
"I don't know how this happened," Bryan Fugett said. "It's absurd. It really is."
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