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Ed Yeates ReportingA St. George mom and dad are still waiting to find out how their two kids were infected with a potent strain of E. coli. In fact, three children from another family they spent six hours with, also became ill with what appears to be the same infection.
Hard to believe eight-year old Colby Heaton was recently in Primary Children's Hospital with a complication that in more than 90 percent of the cases follows an infection from the potent toxin producing E. coli 0157:H7.
Lonny Heaton, Dad: "Colby had the bloody diarrhea and real bad stomach cramps, and you could tell he was in pain. But it was really the blood test that prompted us to fly him up to Primary."
Colby survived. So have four other children hospitalized at Primary over the past four weeks - all of them with Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome. A boy from Idaho died at Primary last week from the same complication.
Colby was not the only victim in the Heaton family. His 10-year old brother Cason was also infected, but never developed HUS.
The Heaton's spent six hours at Lake Mead with another family. Three of those children also got sick. One was hospitalized in Las Vegas.
Lonny Heaton: "That's one of the most frustrating things. It's been over a month now and they still haven't given us any information."
It's frustrating for Lonny and Tara Heaton, especially in recent weeks with the spinach scare. Like many others, the Heaton kids and their cousins got sick not from spinach, but from something else.
Year to year, in all of these E. coli cases investigated by state health departments, even this potent strain of E. coli, the source for many is never identified. Until lab tests come back that show a DNA footprint that ties the Heaton kids and their cousins with the same exact E.Coli 0157:H7 strain, the investigation is in limbo.
Rich Lakin, Disease Investigation, Utah Health Dept.: "Where they're still pending. They're more in kind of a holding pattern until we can get that information."
Even then, when or if health inspectors look at the food they ate --Lake Mead, or contamination from one child to another-- the source may still remain a mystery.
Utah State Health alone has investigated 82 cases of E. coli infections over the past five years. 57 were the 0157:H7 strain.
