December 18, 2009

Family Mourns Father, Urges H1N1 Flu Vaccination

By Kelley Luckstein

"We've got many wonderful pictures of the wedding day," said Cheryl Milbrath, as she paged through a photo album. "Precious now, precious pictures."

 

In October, Cheryl's husband Mike got a fever and ended up in the hospital.

"Like you could tell he was sick, but he's like, 'Oh, this is just precautionary, I'm going to be fine,'" recalled daughter Abby Gibson.

"It just never crossed our minds that he would die from H1N1," said daughter Kate Kupcho.

On Oct. 24, after a week-and-a-half in the hospital, Mike Milbrath died. He was only 54, a healthy man with no underlying health problems.

As a health administrator at Waseca Medical Center, Mike used to come home and tell Cheryl about the steps his hospital was taking to guard against H1N1. Because he didn't work directly with patients, Mike wasn't eligible to get vaccinated

 

WCCO, by Frank Vascellaro, 12/17/09

Tags: H1N1, Infectious Diseases, Mayo Clinic Health System

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