E coli meat on the bones

METRO EAST WOMAN, 20, IS SERIOUSLY ILL WITH E. COLI

Sat., Aug 3, 2003
By Robert Goodrich\Of The Post-Dispatch

A 20-year-old Fairview Heights woman was in intensive care at a hospital Friday with what Illinois and St. Clair County health officials said was one of several cases of E. coli bacteria infection being investigated.
Patricia Timko was admitted to Barnes-Jewish Hospital on Monday, her sister, Rebecca Mead of Swansea, said Friday.
"It's very, very serious, " Mead said of her sister's condition.
Officials with the St. Clair County Health Department and the Illinois Department of Public Health said that there had been several cases of E. coli in the area. Friday night, they had traced at least five cases to the Habaneros Mexican restaurant at St. Clair Square in Fairview Heights.
A spokeswoman for the St. Clair County Health Department said five p eople with probable or confirmed cases of E. coli had eaten at Habaneros on Aug. 23 or 24 and became ill on the 25th or 26th. The restaurant voluntarily closed while health officials conducted an investigation.
Symptoms of E. coli infection include dehydration, abdominal cramps and bloody diarrhea. Illness usually lasts only a few days for most people, but E. coli can prove fatal in the very young, very old and those with weakened immune systems.
The St. Clair County Health Department is asking people who ate at Habaneros since Aug. 23 and have symptoms of infection to contact their physicians.
Family members said Timko is a graduate of Belleville Township High School East and is a student at Southwestern Illinois College in Belleville.
Mead said her sister had required several infusions of blood platelets and that family and friends were organizing a blood drive to help her.
Meanwhile, the family said, anyone who wants to help can call the Red Cross for instructions on where to donate blood, platelets or blood plasma.

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E. COLI STRAIN IN ILL WOMAN IS IDENTIFIED

Sunday, Aug. 4, 2003
Health officials identified the illness that hospitalized at least one Metro East woman as E. coli 0157:H7.
The St. Clair County Health Department confirmed five cases of the infection and continue to test another. Investigators traced the illness to Habaneros Mexican restaurant at St. Clair
Square mall in Fairview Heights. The restaurant voluntarily closed Friday while the investigation continues. Family members said Patricia Timko, 20, who was admitted to Barnes-Jewish Hospital on Monday, was still in serious condition Saturday. Her blood test improved slightly, said her mother, Phyllis Timko. Health officials refused to discuss the condition of the other patients.
Patricia Timko, of Fairview Heights, works at the mall and ate lunch at Habaneros during the last week of last month, her mother said. Health workers have not identified the type of food that caused the infection.
While most E. coli strains are harmless, this particular strain produces a powerful toxin that can cause severe illness, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

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E. COLI STRIKES LIKE LIGHTNING

Sunday, Oct. 5, 2003
By Todd C. Frankel\Of The Post-Dispatch

Her back arched off the hospital bed. Her jaw slammed shut. Her face, covered with light freckles around the nose, turned deathly blue.
A seizure gripped Patty Timko. This seizure was unlike the others in recent days, when she went rigid, as if holding herself back from flying out of bed. This one was worse, her family said later.
And it wasn't letting go.
Her father struggled to hold on to Timko's right leg. Her mother grabbed her daughter's left hand.
She wanted to sing to her, to calm her. Phyllis Timko is a music teacher, and the earlier seizures were made somehow easier by songs like "All Night, All Day, Angels Watching Over Me" and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." But all she could do now was urge her daughter to breathe.
The sound of medical alarms filled the small room at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. Doctors rushed in. Nurses shouted at the family: "Give us the room!"
As they left, Rich Timko looked at his writhing little girl -- the baby of the family at 20 years old -- and thought: This is it. We've lost her.
Patty Timko's body was fighting a mutant microbe called E. coli 0157:H7. Toxins produced by the bacteria flooded her bloodstream, damaging delicate vessels. Blood clots formed; one in her right shoulder swelled her arm grotesquely. Her kidneys shut down. Sickness-induced hallucinations filled her mind. And now seizures.
All from something she ate. It hardly seemed possible.
The popular image of food poisoning is an upset stomach and perhaps a few too many trips to the bathroom. You ate something bad. It tasted funny. You got a little sick and it was over.
But E. coli 0157:H7 is food poisoning in one of its rawest and most feared forms, as the recent outbreak at a restaurant in the St. Clair Square mall illustrated.
That outbreak also showcased the pathogen's uncanny ability to strike seemingly at random.
Only a half-dozen people got sick, despite the potential to reach hundreds. The victims ate different items. They ate on two different days. It occurred at one of the most popular places in the food court.