68-Year-Old Pittsburgh VA Worker Falls Into Coma With Legionnaires’ Disease After 10 Days in ICU
Updated
Updated · WTAE Pittsburgh · Jun 19
68-Year-Old Pittsburgh VA Worker Falls Into Coma With Legionnaires’ Disease After 10 Days in ICU
1 articles · Updated · WTAE Pittsburgh · Jun 19
Summary
Marvin Jones, 68, was on a ventilator in a medically induced coma at UPMC East on Thursday after doctors found Legionella in fluid from his lung and diagnosed Legionnaires’ disease.
Ten days after he went to the emergency room, his daughter said the longtime Pittsburgh VA Medical Center employee had deteriorated enough to need intensive care and dialysis every other day.
Ashley Jones said her father worked in environmental services at the VA until his hospitalization and rarely went anywhere besides work and grocery shopping, leading her to suspect he contracted the illness there.
The Pittsburgh VA said in May that two patients had tested positive for Legionella and that water lines were treated, flushed and tested; the hospital had not responded with further comment.
Legionnaires’ disease is a waterborne bacterial infection that can cause severe pneumonia, and the Pittsburgh VA was the site of a 2011 outbreak that killed at least six patients and sickened more than 20.