Earl Hirschfield, CAN

January 15, 2006
West Nile virus: left helpless by bug bite
By CP

WINNIPEG -- The 50-year-old trucker was suddenly as helpless as a baby, all because of a tiny insect.

"I was like a newborn," said Earl Hirschfield, a West Nile survivor and father of five grown children. "I collapsed on the floor and couldn't get up. I couldn't move my legs."

Hundreds of family and friends held a fundraiser last night for Hirschfield to raise money to make his home wheelchair accessible.

The man who supported his family for three decades as a miner and trucker before being stricken by illness is now slowly recovering after months in hospital.

Still unable to walk, Hirschfield is lifted and moved with the help of his children and wife.

About 225 people in Canada were reported last year as contracting the mosquito-borne virus, including 58 known cases in Manitoba.

For some, contracting West Nile can mean mild flu-like symptoms and a hospital stay of a few days, but for others, like Hirschfield, it can result in serious disability or even death.

"We had no idea what it was at first ... Earl never even gets sick," said his wife Pamela.

Pamela's eyes cloud over with concern when she looks at Hirschfield's beaten frame. Her husband has withered away, she said, losing 85 pounds from his 250-pound frame since late summer, when he first got sick.

She said Hirschfield was unable to communicate for long periods of time due to feeding tubes.

"All I could do was keep talking to him, and let him know I was there and what day it was," she said.

Hirschfield, now tube-free, said he has no idea how he contracted the virus. He wants to warn others about the life-altering threat of West Nile, adding he's now a big supporter of malathion fogging.

"People don't know it can hit as hard as it did for me," he said.

With months and possibly years of physical therapy ahead, Hirschfield said he's not going to let one little bug bite bring him down.

"I guess I'm just never going to retire," he joked, smiling at the brood of children and grandchildren around him.