Carl “Lefty” Long, Victim-NY

Family says Ossian man died from West Nile Virus
By ROB MONTANA - STAFF WRITER

An Ossian man passed away at Highland Hospital in Rochester Tuesday from what his family believes to be complications of West Nile Virus.

Carl “Lefty” Long, 69, first became ill in August, his wife, Rose, said this morning. She said he had come into their home one night complaining of a headache. After checking his blood pressure and finding it elevated, Rose said she consulted with Carl's doctor and gave him an extra blood pressure pill. The next morning he was a completely different person.

“He was totally confused, and doing things that were not normal,” Rose Long said. “I had to physically dress him and took him to his doctor's office in Canaseraga.”

Once there, Long said the doctor told her they were sending Carl to Noyes Memorial Hospital in Dansville by ambulance. After a couple days at Noyes he was transferred to Highland Hospital in Rochester.

“He just deteriorated so quickly,” Long said. “He thought he was working, in his mind.

When he was transferred to Highland, he underwent two spinal taps and stomach surgery. Long said the tap showed West Nile Virus.

“It's a scary thing,” she said. “His body, I can't explain it, it just lost all its strength.

“It happened so fast,” Long added. “We tried everything to save him, but we couldn't.”

After looking into the case this morning, Joan Ellison, Livingston County Health Department director, said her office has received no confirmation of West Nile Virus from lab results it has received.

“We are looking into this matter, and we did have contact with the family,” Ellison said. “The lab results we have received have been negative for West Nile Virus.”

Ellison said there are certain tests done to determine West Nile presence through a lab in Albany. She said her office is still checking to see if all the results are in, and for anything that would indicate a test done more recently.

Long spoke with someone at the county health department at the time her husband was stricken.

“I was angry because they never told anybody about it being in the area, they don't think it's here,” she said. “They asked me if he had traveled out of the country, and I told them no, just locally.”

Carl Long's doctor, Dr. Thomas Dwyer, was out of his office this morning, but his office manager said they could not release any information as a result of HIPAA regulations that protect privacy of patients. The physician that cared for Carl at Highland Hospital also was unavailable for comment this morning.

Long spoke with Dwyer's office this morning, and they said they would not release the information until she fills out some legal documents. She said they did tell her they looked at the file and had some information from Highland that said Carl passed away from encephalitis as a result of West Nile Virus.

Matt McChesney, CO

McChesney hopes to play for Jets
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 12/3/05
BY JOSH THOMSON
STAFF WRITER

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — One Sunday in mid-July, Matt McChesney woke up with a brutal headache. For a football player, headaches usually aren't a big deal, but McChesney just couldn't shake loose from the pounding between his ears.

By the time McChesney decided he better head to the hospital, his body had been so sapped of its strength that his father, David, and younger brother, Zack, had to drag the 6-foot-4, 307-pounder to the car.

Upon admittance to the emergency room, doctors ran a series of tests and eventually divulged to the big, strong, affable former University of Colorado defensive tackle that he had contracted the energy-depleting West Nile Virus. Not only was driving to St. Louis Rams camp the next day out of the question, so was football. Ten days later the Rams cut McChesney loose.

A mosquito bite, his mom says with irony, almost cost her son his entire rookie season.

"Everyone was out there proving themselves for a position," Lynn McChesney said Friday by phone. "And here he was sitting at home and trying to get better."

These days, McChesney is fully healed and has been a member of the Jets practice squad since early November. Considering he just turned 24, McChesney, who was drafted by St. Louis in the seventh round, still has plenty of time to make a mark. But there were days and nights that seemed impossible.

McChesney was in and out of the hospital all summer long and taking medication to numb his headaches. It took the entire 60-day recovery period just to shake the West Nile Virus, so training for the NFL wasn't exactly happening either.

In September, both the Jets and Indianapolis Colts contacted him for a tryout. Because he had only been on his feet about five days by that point, the workout in New York went poorly. He flew to Indianapolis that night but failed his physical.

During October, McChesney flew to New York for another workout. But it took a third trip to New York to land him a spot on the practice squad.

Copyright © 2005 Asbury Park Press. All rights reserved.