Ellie Rudd shall be buried in a gentle blue and white Princess Elsa costume, made for her as a final reward from her aunt. “Frozen” was one of her favourite motion pictures.
The rambunctious 4-year-old – who cherished mud and getting dressed up and having dance events along with her brother and sisters – died January 6, after the flu and a co-infection with an adenovirus become pneumonia and sepsis.
“She was probably my healthiest of all my kids,” stated her mother, Sarah Rudd.
“She had no medical issues. No eczema, no cavities in her teeth, nothing. She was completely healthy,” she stated. “I have no idea why it hit her so hard.”
This season, a minimum of 17 kids within the United States have died from the flu, a quantity that may develop as extra states report their numbers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The final flu season, which spanned the winter between 2024 and 2025, set a report for probably the most pediatric deaths in a season, with 289.
This yr’s flu season has proved to be even busier than final yr’s, with outpatient visits for “flu-like” signs reaching their highest stage in almost 30 years, pushed by a new virus pressure known as subclade Okay. And infectious illness specialists concern this yr might become even deadlier than final yr.
“There was a strain that emerged after we had a chance to make the predictions for our current flu shots, so it was too late to change any of our vaccines,” stated Dr. Buddy Creech, a pediatric infectious illness skilled at Vanderbilt University. Although subclade Okay isn’t included on this yr’s photographs, research have proven that many individuals do generate antibodies towards it when given the present flu vaccines.
Still, “we’re seeing what happens when there’s a bit of a mismatch and when enthusiasm over getting vaccinated is low, and again, that one-two punch is leading to a really significant flu year,” Creech stated.
The flu arrived on the Rudds’ home in Ogden, Utah, on Christmas Day.
Sarah, a mother of 4, was the primary to get sick. She had it for about a week, she says. “It was pretty rough, but everybody else seemed to be just fine,” she remembers.
Then the newborn, 14-month-old Dani, developed a fever that might come and go, however she appeared to bounce again shortly. After that, dad Michael additionally started having intermittent fevers. By the time he started feeling higher, the three older kids – Mary Jane, 6; Ellie; and 3-year-old Kyler – had caught it, too. They started displaying signs on New Year’s Day.
“Neither Michael nor I have ever had the flu shot before, and so we just don’t think about getting it,” she stated.
“Honestly, I don’t even know if it would have helped in this situation, as it seems like it might have been a different strain,” she stated. “We don’t know.”
For probably the most half, Sarah says, folks have been form, however she and her husband have additionally been harm by feedback from strangers who second-guessed their medical selections.
“I feel that we made the best choice that we could at the time,” she stated.
Initially, Mary Jane gave the impression to be the worst off of the three older youngsters. Her fevers spiked to 102 levels, so Sarah started alternating ibuprofen and Tylenol to maintain them below management.
Ellie and Kyler appeared to shortly return to their regular energetic selves after a dose of kids’s ibuprofen that first morning, Sarah stated, however by the subsequent day, they had been additionally spiking excessive fevers and wanted a couple of drugs to remain comfy.
On January 2, Ellie fell asleep on the sofa, so Sarah woke her up and despatched her to mattress. A couple of minutes later, Kyler, who shares the bed room with Ellie, walked out together with his sister and stated, “Mommy, Ellie needs you.”
Ellie’s cough had become a harsh bark, “and I was like ‘crap, what is that?’ ” Sarah stated, “I didn’t like the sound of it.”
Sarah bundled Ellie up and drove her to a native hospital, the place Ellie examined constructive for each the flu and adenovirus, which may additionally trigger respiratory sickness.
Sarah discovered that Ellie’s cough was known as croup and was attributable to swelling round her vocal cords, which may occur with viral infections. An X-ray didn’t present any indicators of pneumonia, however her blood oxygen stage was solely 85%, so the medical workers gave her some supplemental oxygen and the antiviral Tamiflu and informed Sarah they wished to maintain her in a single day.
“I thought they’d just give us something and send us home,” Sarah stated.
Ellie awoke coughing all through the evening. She would cry a little and return to sleep. Around 3 or 4 a.m., she started to complain of ache in her decrease stomach.
The subsequent day, the attending physician examined her and stated every thing was going properly. The hospital was making ready to discharge her when her oxygen stage started to drop once more, and that afternoon, Ellie began throwing up blood.
She was bleeding internally, however medical doctors didn’t know the place the blood was coming from.
A follow-up X-ray revealed that Ellie had developed pneumonia in a single of her lungs in a single day. She had additionally developed sepsis, overwhelming irritation within the physique in response to an an infection. It can set off a harmful situation that causes each uncontrolled bleeding and clotting on the similar time.
Paramedics airlifted Ellie to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, however they struggled to maintain her blood oxygen up. At the hospital, Ellie was placed on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, a machine that takes over the work of the center and lungs to offer the physique time to recuperate.
On January 5, the medical doctors defined that Ellie had developed blood clots in her coronary heart, however she was too fragile for surgical procedure to take away them. They mentioned attempting a blood thinning remedy, however that was dangerous as a result of she had already had inner bleeding.
As the Rudds had been speaking to medical doctors about Ellie’s dire state of affairs, Sarah’s telephone rang. It was her mother, who was watching the 2 older kids, Kyler and Mary Jane, who had been each nonetheless sick. Mary Jane had additionally developed pneumonia, together with bronchitis.
“It was just an absolute … you know … shitshow, I want to say, but it’s too crass of a way to say it,” Sarah stated. “There’s no other method to actually say it.
“It was devastating,” she stated. “It was absolute chaos and horrible.
“Just with Ellie, everything was getting from bad to worse, and there was just never any good spot that we were in,” Sarah stated. “I couldn’t cease crying for a whereas, and I felt like I’d misplaced all hope at that time. I attempted to carry on to some hope, however there wasn’t a lot left.
“It hit her so fast and so hard.”
The blood thinners didn’t assist. Twelve hours later, Ellie had a large stroke.
“The left side of her brain had no brain activity,” Sarah stated. “It was just time to let her go at that point.”
Creech, of Vanderbilt, stated the small print of Ellie’s story are tragic however acquainted. He has seen some kids with flu that will get worse in a short time.
“We talk about this a lot in pediatrics. They don’t mean to, but young children often lie to us. They look like they are doing OK until they really aren’t,” he stated. “The younger the child is, the more quickly things can change.”
When he evaluates youngsters, he appears at three sorts of bodily indicators: How are they respiration? Are there neurologic signs? Are they hydrated?
First, parents ought to control how briskly a youngster is respiration and the way onerous they’re working to breathe.
“Do they have tough or labored breathing, where they’re really having to tug at it to do it?” Creech stated. “Are they having to use extra muscles around their neck or their ribs to breathe? That would be a red flag.”
For neurologic signs, he says, it’s vital to examine to see if a youngster is torpid, even when they don’t have a fever. Have they misplaced curiosity in consuming or ingesting or interacting with you?
“I think that’s a really important feature, that they’re shunting all of their energy away from watching a show or interacting with you as a parent, to just trying to breathe and trying to stay in an OK spot,” Creech stated.
Finally, he says, a youngster who’s respiration too quick can shortly turn out to be dehydrated.
“And when kids get dehydrated, unfortunately, that makes them not want to drink even more. It makes them vomit, and so sometimes they get even further behind,” he stated.
Another good check is whether or not youngsters really feel higher after remedy. If Tylenol or ibuprofen brings their fever down, do they perk up?
“What most of us will do is give some Tylenol or give some Motrin and then, after about an hour, reassess. And if the child looks great, is drinking, is watching a show, OK, that makes us feel better,” he stated. “But if they are now still feeling poorly, even when the fever comes down, that’s another one of those red flags for needing a little bit more evaluation.”
The Rudd household stated their goodbyes to Ellie within the hospital on January 6.
Family and pals have rallied round them as they battle to get by means of every day with out their daughter. Family members have started a GoFundMe page to defray medical and funeral bills.
Sarah says the other youngsters are doing their greatest to manage.
“The other day, we were dropping off a dress for Ellie to be buried in, and Kyler was asking if Ellie had her wings now and she was an angel up in heaven. And I said, ‘yes,’ because we are religious, and so I think he understands some, but I just don’t know how much,” Sarah stated.
Mary Jane is older and has been extra subdued. She’s recovering properly from her personal sickness, and “she’s finally started to kind of come back to herself.”
Asked whether or not she had a message for other parents, Sarah stated Ellie’s loss of life had prompted the household to rethink the significance of flu photographs.
“Honestly, just get your flu shots,” she stated. “Even if it doesn’t work this yr, possibly it might have helped her a little bit. We don’t actually know.
“Probably next season, we’ll look into getting the flu shot for our kids and us,” Sarah stated. “So just extra peace of mind.”
She stated it might be the primary time anybody of their household had been vaccinated towards the flu.
“I’ve never been afraid of sickness before, but now I’m a little terrified.”