The flu this season has shut down schools and offices; it has even killed people. Some of the hardest-hit are children and the elderly.
Little Emily Grace Muth is one of the unlucky ones. She got sick and her mother took her to an urgent care facility. There, she was diagnosed with the flu and prescribed Tamiflu. She was sent home with instructions for bedrest and plenty of fluids.
Three days later, the child’s breathing became labored and her mother called an ambulance. The EMTs told Rhonda Muth to keep her daughter hydrated and she would get better within a week. Hours later, Emily Grace Muth stopped breathing and died. She is one of 30 children that have been killed by the deadly flu.
Emily did not get the flu shot, and now her parents are planning to have her two brothers vaccinated. The CDC is urging everyone to get the flu shot; it is not too to get vaccinated.
Rhonda Muth says, “One day she’s fine, you know, and I mean she had the fever and she was a little achy. Other than that, she had the runny nose and cough like typical, you know, and then she’s gone.”
Muth says she called the ambulance when her daughter’s breathing became labored. She said paramedics told her that labored breathing was a common symptom of the flu, and to keep Emily hydrated and let it run its course.
The paramedics did ask Rhonda if she wanted them to take Emily to the hospital, but she declined because she says she trusted what they had told her. Later, that day, Emily’s breathing became even more labored and paramedics were called back to the house where they administered CPR to the six-year old.
By the time they got her to the hospital, Emily had already died.
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