Blake
A Flu Story
Place of Residence: Coos Bay, Oregon
Blake was a healthy, active 16-year-old who loved sports, music, fishing, and video games. Sadly, Blake lost his life to flu in February 2020 just a few days after he started showing symptoms.
His mother, Becky, shares her son’s story to inform others that annual vaccination is the best protection we have against flu.
How would you describe Blake and what are some of your fondest memories of him?
Blake was a healthy, active boy that loved baseball, music and playing his trumpet, fishing, and video games. The thing we miss the most is watching him play baseball. He was a pitcher during his last years of high school. Many of our best memories were spent doing outdoor activities with him, such as camping, fishing, and hunting.
How did Blake become sick?
Blake started feeling sick after school on Friday and slept the evening away. The next morning, he complained of a severe sore throat, so we took him to urgent care. They tested him for strep throat and had us wait for the results. The strep test was negative, so the doctor said he must have a virus and told us to keep him hydrated and let him rest. Later that night he complained he was having trouble breathing, but we thought it was just head congestion or a result of a back ache, both of which could reasonably be responsible for his difficulty breathing. In the early evening on Sunday, he began vomiting blood, so we took him to the emergency room. They recognized Blake was in respiratory distress and rushed him back. Soon after, they told us his lungs were full of blood and that he tested positive for influenza B. It was at that point that we realized just how serious Blake’s illness was.
How did his illness progress? What happened in the hospital?
While in the emergency room, they had to intubate Blake. They had planned to air-transport him to a larger children’s hospital, but when the team arrived to transfer him over to their equipment for the flight, he went into cardiac arrest multiple times. In the end, we made the decision not to continue his resuscitation efforts.
Was Blake vaccinated?
Blake’s dad and I were vaccinated, and Blake had always gotten his vaccinations in the past. However the year he died he didn’t get his annual flu shot. He had started driving that year, so it was not as convenient to get him to the doctor’s office for his vaccination.
What do you want others to take away from your story?
The part of our story in which I had to say “no, he is not vaccinated” that night and learning that it could have saved him is what I want non-vaccinators to hear.
I wish I had known the warning signs of respiratory distress and had awareness that flu can kill even healthy, young people. I was clueless!
What are you doing to help raise awareness on flu?
As a teacher in our local school district, I have been able to coordinate with a community-based health service to bring flu shot clinics to our schools each fall since Blake’s death. The vaccinations are free for our students and getting so many people vaccinated makes me feel like I’m making a difference in my community,
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