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A YEAR LATER: Boy hospitalized for E. coli still feeling effects; family angry at county response
| Friday, Mar 7 2008 6:36 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Mar 10 2008 2:30 PM
Elijah Walker went to Jack in the Box — his favorite restaurant — for his 7th birthday last month.
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Elijah Walker, 7, was one of the local children sickened by the E. coli outbreak last year. Elijah's dad, JT, is in background.
Elijah Walker, 7, with his mom and dad, Janet and JT, at their home Thursday.
Then the family read that Bakersfield Jack in the Box restaurants might have served some of the beef targeted in a recent nationwide recall.
“He just about had a breakdown,” said Elijah’s father, JT Walker.
While no one is known to have been sickened by the beef, the recall reminds the Walker family of their bout with foodborne illness.
It has been nearly a year since Elijah suffered kidney failure after becoming ill with E. coli. He was one of 11 local people, including other pupils in his Ronald Reagan Elementary kindergarten class, sickened by the bacteria.
“We’re going to get E. coli again,” Elijah told his parents after hearing about Jack in the Box.
While he looks healthy, Elijah could be dealing with the consequences of E. coli for the rest of his life, including future problems with his kidneys and blood pressure, said his mother Janet Walker.
“That’s what Elijah has to look forward to,” she said.
Another lingering side effect is the family’s bad opinion of the county Public Health Services Department.
“I think because they failed to act in an expeditious manner, they failed to find the source,” JT said.
Department officials maintain they did their job appropriately.
HOW IT STARTED
Elijah became ill April 27, the day after he and other children in his class and play group attended a backyard birthday party.
Due to the incubation period of E. coli, which is usually three to eight days, Elijah probably got sick before the party, but it’s possible that he or another child could have spread it through water on an inflatable slide.
His parents took him to Bakersfield Memorial Hospital after he started suffering from bloody diarrhea.
Then others in Elijah’s class and play group started showing up at the hospital, including Jane Maberry, who would later also suffer from hemolytic-uremic syndrome, the condition Elijah got that caused kidney failure.
“They had Jane in a stroller. She was this blob,” Elijah’s father said. “We started putting the pieces together.”
It was also around that time that they found out the cause: E. coli O157:H7, his mother said.
The bacteria is one of the most common and harmful. It’s naturally found in the intestines of several animals, including humans, and can infect people through contaminated meat, vegetables, milk, juice and water.
“Oh, the kind that killed all those kids with the spinach?” JT remembered asking. He was referring to a 2006 E. coli outbreak that sickened 200 people who ate contaminated spinach.
The other children started to improve and were discharged. Elijah and Jane only worsened.
Elijah was transferred to Children’s Hospital Central California in Madera; 12 hours later Jane went to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
THE INVESTIGATION
The Kern County Department of Public Health Services became aware of the cases May 3, three days after Elijah was admitted to the hospital, said then-County Public Health Officer Dr. B.A. Jinadu in May.
From the beginning, the Walkers weren’t happy with the Public Health Services Department.
“Kern County Public Health has done a really poor job,” only speaking with Janet briefly, JT told The Californian in its May 8 edition, the story that broke the news of the illnesses.
Jinadu’s current whereabouts are unknown and he could not be reached for comment on this story.
Usually when cases of E. coli are suspected, physicians immediately call the health department, said interim Public Health Officer Dr. Claudia Jonah Thursday. Investigators get their facts from many sources, including doctors and patients.
Several of the parents got together for coffee May 1 to map out where their kids had been over the previous week, trying to find a common link.
“We felt it was moving too slowly,” said Michelle Sunderland, whose son Joshua became ill but wasn't admitted to the hospital. “We got a flow chart together and presented it to Public Health.”
Such an effort usually helps an investigation, Jonah said.
“That saves us a little bit of time,” she said. “It can target us.”
IN MADERA
On Elijah’s third day at the children’s hospital, doctors put him on dialysis. He was losing kidney function and wasn’t able to urinate.
“He was obviously very pale from that anemia at that point,” said Dr. Syed Kamal, nephrologist with the children’s hospital.
Then, almost three weeks after being in a hospital, Elijah’s kidneys regained enough function for him to urinate.
It was also around that time that Jinadu paid the family a visit.
“He said, ‘I understand you’re a little upset,’” JT said. “I told him I was upset, that I was upset with the way they handled it, and I thought they had been negligent with the case.”
“He said that he could see how I could feel that way.”
Jinadu explained that sometimes the cause of foodborne illness is never found, JT said.
“Can you do something a little more intensively? Yes,” Jonah said Thursday. “But there was not a screw-up.”
Janet thinks Jinadu’s attention was elsewhere, on his prospective job with San Diego’s public health department.
His official last day with the county — Friday, June 1 — was the day the department declared the outbreak officially over and that the cause would likely never be found. On Monday, June 4, information emerged that Jinadu lost his new job in San Diego because of allegations that his private, out-of-county clinics improperly billed the state, resulting in a debt of more than $350,000.
Jonah reiterated that the department did its job.
Elijah was discharged May 22 and he was able to attend a few days of school before summer vacation, his parents said.
Jane was discharged from Cedars-Sinai shortly thereafter.
ELIJAH TODAY
The Walker family has an attorney looking into the outbreak, including how the health department handled it, JT said.
And Elijah has some lingering effects from the ordeal.
“Most children will have complete recovery, but they will need follow-up for many years,” Kamal said.
He is at higher risk for high blood pressure and kidney problems. He doesn’t have the same energy he had before.
He gets red-cheeked when playing outside, said his mother.
“He was always the healthy kid, the active kid,” his father said. “Now he’s the one sitting out.”