A 2-year-old is fighting for her life after contracting three strains of E. coli while swimming in Keystone Lake, her family says.
Toddler Elisabeth Faircloth was swimming and boating with her family in Oklahoma in early June when she started feeling sick. The child was prescribed antibiotics for strep throat, but her condition only worsened.
"It's a nightmare, and it happened so fast — within like a week, we're here," Suzanne Faircloth, the girl’s mother, told KOTV. The antibiotic actually aggravated her infection, she told the outlet.
At the emergency room, doctors told her family that the child had contracted three strains of E. coli, leading to Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), an infection that affects the kidneys, according to Cleveland Clinic.
"It blows our minds, because we've never even heard of anything like this ever happening," Faircloth said. "We've heard of E. coli — but usually in hamburgers."
The little girl is still in the intensive care unit.
"They are working night and day — the staff is amazing — just to keep her stable," Faircloth told KOTV about the hospital staff. "It kind of feels like you're drowning and you get brief moments of air just enough to keep you alive, but there's no end in sight."
Melissa Lynne, the child’s aunt, wrote in a social media post last week that her kidneys have been “most severely” impacted. “She is currently on dialysis and has been medically paralyzed in order to give her little body the best chance at conquering this thing,” she wrote. “Although the prognosis is hopeful, it will be a very long battle to get her well again and it's uncertain if she will ever recover 100% or if there will be permanent kidney and/or brain damage.”
She now is fighting an infection in her lungs, the family wrote on Facebook Monday, noting that doctors can’t use the typical treatment — antibiotics — since that will only worsen her condition.
In a social media post, they added: “[We] just can’t imagine another child fighting for their life or parents living through this hell, when we could have warned families. Stay vigilant parents and get your kids in early if symptoms arise after a lake day.”
“The faster you get your kids in the better the odds,” they said.
