We’ve all heard the warnings about watching out for ticks as they can cause serious illness and disease, but a mother from Missouri ended up losing her life after contracting the Bourbon virus.
Tamela Wilson died from complications of the virus which is believed to have been caused by a tick bite she got from working at Meramec State Park.
“I want people to know it’s out there. We have a virus that doesn’t have a cure, and that’s scary,” Wilson’s daughter Amie May told St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Wilson had worked at the park for 10 years, so ticks weren’t anything new to her. The 58-year-old assistant park superintendent’s health started to deteriorate three days after taking two ticks off her body.
Her doctor initially diagnosed her with a urinary tract infection and gave her antibiotics. But things got worse from there.
“She literally couldn’t even pick up her phone. She had no strength,” May told CBS News. “My sister had been calling her and couldn’t get a hold of her. My mom said the phone was right there ringing, but she could not pick it up to answer it.”
Wilson started to suffer severe headaches, pain, and a light rash. She had tests taken which revealed that she had a low white blood cell count but nothing more.
“They did a couple skin biopsies, but they came back fine,” May said. “They did other testing for tick-borne disease, but those were also negative.”
Doctors hoped they could treat the symptoms and that they would eventually disappear. But Wilson just got sicker. She developed hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), a condition affecting her immune cells, and her rash spread to other parts of her body, including her mouth.
“I’m a nurse and I’ve never seen anything like I’d seen my mother’s mouth,” May said. “It got so bad toward the end she couldn’t talk, couldn’t drink, couldn’t eat — nothing.”
Eventually, tests sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that she had the Bourbon virus.
Bourbon virus is extremely rare and was first identified in 2014. There is currently no treatment for the virus. Wilson is the fifth person to have been confirmed to have the virus.
Wilson passed away three weeks after she was admitted to the hospital.
“I was somebody, like, I didn’t really give much attention to a tick bite. You get a bite, pull it out and go about your business,” May said. “You don’t think about complications coming from a tick bite. As far as I know, other tick-borne diseases are treatable. That’s what’s scary about this one — you don’t know if you’re gonna make it or not.”
A week after her death, the state Department of Natural Resources deemed Meramec State Park as “an area of interest” and began collecting ticks for testing.
That same day the state confirmed that someone had contracted the disease but didn’t mention a death.
May says that the state’s statement was too vague and didn’t adequately alert the public.
Wilson was healthy before she was bitten by the ticks but she had undergone treatment for non-Hodkin’s lymphoma since 2012. According to St. Louis Post-Dispatch people with chronic medical conditions who contract a tick-borne disease are at a higher risk for developing serious illness.
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