An Oregon mother of two died of complications from the flu just days after being diagnosed.
Tandy Harmon, 36, of Gresham, Oregon, passed away Friday, Jan. 19 less than a week after beginning to feel sick and just two days after being diagnosed with influenza, PEOPLE reports.
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According to Harmon’s boyfriend, Steve Lundin, the 36-year-old single mother visited the hospital on Jan. 17 after she began to feel sick. Doctors diagnosed her with influenza and sent her home, recommending that she rest and stay hydrated. Within hours, however, Harmon’s condition had worsened and her boyfriend rushed her back to the hospital, where doctors told the family that she had developed pneumonia and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
“The doctors told us that she had the flu and then the flu opened up the gates for MRSA to set in and she had walking pneumonia,” Lundin told KGW8. “They said that’s like a worst-case scenario that doesn’t often happen.”
Harmon was placed on a breathing tube, but as her condition continued to worsen, physicians placed her on life support. On Jan. 19, she passed away.
“She was my woman and a great mother of two for those that didn’t know her. I am at a loss of words about how we are dealing with this. The flu set in, MRSA, and within a couple days God had another angle,” Lundin wrote in a Facebook post.
Tandy Harmon’s death isn’t the first this flu season, which has proven to be deadly. A 27-year-old California woman, Katharine Gallagher, passed away in December, and a 21-year-old body builder from Pennsylviania died of organ failure due to septic shock caused by the flu that same month.
The flu has also claimed the lives of several children, with 7-year-old Kevin Baynes of Pittsylvania County, Virginia passing away on Jan. 29, just two days after being diagnosed with influenza, and a 12-year-old Michigan boy dying of the flu on Jan. 11 after testing negative for influenza.
The CDC has categorized the 2017 to 2018 flu season as “moderately severe,” with a warning that it could get worse. They are urging the American people to get the flu vaccine, but warns that it only reduces the chances of contracting the virus by 10% to 60%. Furthermore, they point out that the more people who get vaccinated, the lower the risk to the community as a whole.
