Idaho teen went to the doctor with flu on Dec. 27. She died less than 2 weeks later
An Idaho Falls girl went to the doctor with a sore throat and fever two days after Christmas, but her sickness took a turn for the worse and she died four days before her 14th birthday.
Liliana “Lily” Isabel Juson Clark visited an urgent care clinic on Dec. 27 because she wasn’t feeling well, according to a GoFundMe page set up by Deseray Burtenshaw, a friend of Clark’s mom.
On Sunday, less than two weeks later, Clark died in a Salt Lake City hospital. Her family was by her side.
“Lily had the power to make anyone smile and laugh at her silly dances. She was a very girly girl and loved to spend hours styling her hair,” Clark’s obituary reads.
Clark was sent home with Tamiflu after her initial trip to the doctor, but on Dec. 30, she was taken back to urgent care, according to the GoFundMe page.
“Lily’s parents rushed her back in because of increasingly worse symptoms that included not being able to breathe and having a green color to her,” Burtenshaw wrote.
The urgent care called for an ambulance and she was taken to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center, with her oxygen level at 60%, according to Burtenshaw. She said oxygen masks weren’t helping Clark, so she was sedated and intubated.
According to Burtenshaw, doctor’s discovered that Clark had pneumonia and methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a staph infection that most antibiotics can’t treat. It had spread throughout her body and there was swelling and bleeding in her brain, Burtenshaw wrote.
Clark was taken to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake, where tests reportedly showed no brain activity. “Lily had never woke up since being sedated a week prior,” according to Burtenshaw.
Clark attended Longfellow Elementary and Taylorview Middle School, where “she was an outstanding student and beloved by her teachers and classmates,” her obituary reads. She enjoyed playing the violin and hoped to be a model and photographer one day.
Clark’s is one of six flu-related deaths in Idaho this season. Eastern Idaho Public Health Spokeswoman Mimi Taylor said flu activity is high throughout the state and country.
“This is definitely the time of year that flu activity picks up,” Taylor said. “The CDC has reported that it has been very active this year and Idaho has been identified by the CDC as a more active state for influenza right now.”
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s influenza report at the end of 2019 noted that flu activity had been elevated for eight weeks already, a trend that has continued in 2020.
This story was originally published January 9, 2020 at 12:35 PM.