Upper East Side Legionnaires' Outbreak Kills 88-Year-Old Veteran as Cases Reach 72
Updated
Updated · WABC-TV · Jul 20
Upper East Side Legionnaires' Outbreak Kills 88-Year-Old Veteran as Cases Reach 72
3 articles · Updated · WABC-TV · Jul 20
Summary
An 88-year-old Yorkville businessman and Air Force veteran died July 17 after two weeks in intensive care, and officials on Sunday identified him as the outbreak's second fatality.
A 104-degree fever on July 2 led to his hospitalization, where he was intubated, placed on dialysis and treated with intravenous antibiotics before succumbing to Legionnaires' disease.
Health officials have tied the Upper East Side cluster to contaminated cooling towers; 72 people have been diagnosed and nine remain hospitalized.
City inspectors have ordered 76 buildings to clean their cooling towers after more than 45 additional Legionella-positive tests, though officials said earlier the likely exposure source has been eliminated.
Legionnaires' disease is treatable but kills about 10% of patients, and the outbreak has now caused three deaths in a neighborhood still shadowed by Harlem's 2025 cluster that sickened more than 100.