Patient Who Shut ERs Down Released

Doctors now think she had chickenpox

November 5, 2002
By CHARLES RUNNELLS

A woman whose mysterious illness sparked a shutdown of two county emergency rooms went home Monday from Cape Coral Hospital, but she said she still doesn’t know what made her sick.

Ann Hawkins, 59, of North Fort Myers was discharged from the hospital after almost two weeks — most of that in the intensive care unit.

Doctors first feared Hawkins’ crusted sores and fever meant smallpox. After ruling that out, they considered a list of possible causes that included shingles, measles, a staph infection and a bad reaction to medication.

“They went through everything,” said Hawkins’ brother, Don Wainscott of Cape Coral. “It was a guessing game, it seemed like to me.”

At the time of her discharge, doctors had begun leaning toward chickenpox, Wainscott said.

Hawkins declined to be interviewed further.

Wainscott said about three-quarters of Hawkins’ sores have disappeared, and doctors said she wasn’t contagious anymore.

Hawkins arrived at the Cape Coral Hospital emergency room Oct. 22. Hospital managers worried she had smallpox and closed down the emergency rooms there and at Lee Memorial Hospital in Fort Myers, where they thought Hawkins’ paramedics had gone. Dozens of patients were diverted to other area hospitals.

About four hours later at 7:30 p.m., they’d ruled out smallpox and both emergency rooms reopened.

The hospital ERs closed during peak hours, said hospital spokeswoman Karen Krieger, and lost about $5,000 in business.

Tim Beckett, Lee Memorial Health System’s acute care controller, said there was no plans to charge Hawkins for the money lost — just the cost of her treatment. “That’s just part and parcel for running an ER,” he said.

Wainscott said he doesn’t understand why it took doctors so long to discharge his sister. “I feel she could have come back to the house and have been better off. It was pretty frustrating.”

Hawkins came to the hospital in critical condition. She was moved from isolation in the ICU, to another ICU room and finally to a regular hospital room.

Wainscott said his sister is still weak from staying two weeks in the hospital, but otherwise she’s recuperating well.

“All in all, she feels pretty good,” he said.

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