12-year-old Girl Dies After Erroneously Diagnosed With Influenza: "Something So Simple Took My Baby"

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

Doctors told the family of a 12-year-old California girl that she had the flu - but finding out a few days later that it was something else, it was too late.

A day after Alyssa Alcaraz was sent home earlier from Green Acres Middle School due to illness, her family took her to the Kaweah Delta Urgent Care Center in Visalia, CA, where doctors diagnosed the student with influenza. seventh grade. They gave her ibuprofen, cough syrup (although she did not have a cough), and nausea medicine to ease vomiting, and told her to go home to rest.

Her mother, Keila Lino, says that at the time nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

"He was in very good health and suddenly got sick," Lino told People magazine. "I've had flu and flu before, so it wasn't new to us."

However, even with a few days of rest at home, Alyssa's health deteriorated rapidly and she had difficulty breathing and little appetite.

"It was so fast," recalls Lino. "It was all so sudden."

With Alyssa's health in jeopardy, her family took her back to the urgent care center, where a doctor discovered she had dangerously low levels of oxygen. Alyssa was then transferred to the Kaweah Delta Medical Center and it was there that she suffered cardiac arrest while doctors tried to test her for meningitis.

Alyssa passed away in a few hours on the afternoon of December 17.

Days after her death, as the family prepared for her funeral, they learned that officials attributed Alyssa's death to cardiac arrest and septic shock after an infection entered her bloodstream. The initial diagnosis of influenza was incorrect.

“I was in shock, I had a mixture of emotions. I thought that finding out the cause would allow for a closure in some way, "Lino recalled. "Once we found out the cause, I just couldn't believe that something so simple took my baby."

Typically, if diagnosed early, a septic infection can be treated with antibiotics.

"He was furious, all they had to do was take a blood test and give him antibiotics, and she would have been fine," Jeremy Alcaraz, Alyssa's father, told People magazine. "This would not have happened."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each year more than 1.5 million Americans suffer from sepsis, which causes about 250,000 deaths. Sepsis occurs when chemicals used to fight an infection enter the bloodstream, causing widespread inflammation. Symptoms include shortness of breath, low blood pressure, mental confusion, and a fast heart rate.

Alyssa's mother revealed that a few days before she got sick, she was happy and healthy, and had just participated in a Christmas concert with her school choir.

“He was very sociable, he was the family clown. He was always happy, he always sang in the car, at home, he was a girl full of life, "he said. “Alyssa was smart, you never saw her in a bad mood, you never had to be aware of whether she did her chores and homework. She was a really happy girl."

To this day, parents say they have received no response from Kaweah Delta Medical Center regarding the misdiagnosis and their urgent care center. While they have not sought legal help yet, Jeremy Alcaraz says she may hire a lawyer to pressure doctors around the country to change their rules.

“They are acting as if nothing has happened. He was only 12 years old, he had a whole life ahead of him, who knows what he could have become as he grew up, "reflects Jeremy. "We don't know and now we will never know."

With the flu season booming nationally, California has witnessed the deaths of at least 27 people under the age of 65 from the disease since October. Influenza has symptoms similar to those of a septic infection, such as fever, fatigue, and loss of appetite.

"I want parents to pressure doctors to do more tests," adds Jeremy. “No one knows their children better than their parents. You know your son better than anyone."

Family members have created a page on GoFundMe to help cover expenses and approximately 117 people have gathered more of Jeremy's art in a sore voice. Well then, this is your chance and she is a heroine. It will have many lives."

Translated by Carmen Orozco

This article originally appeared on People.com