TORONTO - A grief-stricken father whose otherwise healthy teenage son died suddenly from the swine flu struggled to make sense of the tragedy Tuesday and urged other parents to keep a close eye on their ill children.


Paul Frustaglio said it took barely more than a day for the H1N1 flu virus to kill Evan - his "best friend" - who turned 13 last month.


"He fell so quickly," Frustaglio told The Canadian Press. "I was watching him. I was there when he died."


Evan's death on Monday came on the same day health authorities across Canada began rolling out a vaccination program against H1N1.


The teen would not have been considered a priority for the flu shot because he wasn't in a high-risk group.


The avid hockey player in Grade 8 began feeling ill over the weekend during a tournament in London, Ont.


His symptoms included fever and some vomiting.


His dad took him to a walk-in clinic on Sunday afternoon, where he was seen and sent home with advice to take over-the-counter medication.


The family felt confident it was a simple case of flu that would soon pass.


That seemed to be happening. By Monday morning, his fever had broken and he was no longer nauseated. The family thought he was on the mend.


Evan asked to take a bath. Ten minutes later, as his horrified father watched, he suddenly went limp.


His father tried CPR as paramedics rushed to the west-end home.


"They worked on my son feverishly for over two hours," Frustaglio said. "His heart wasn't responding. The disease had taken over his heart."


The tragedy follows the death Saturday of a 10-year-old eastern Ontario girl from H1N1. Vanetia Warner of Cornwall, Ont., was sick for several days before her condition rapidly deteriorated.


She died Saturday in Ottawa, and it was not immediately known if she had any underlying medical conditions.


The coroner's office informed the Frustaglios that Evan had succumbed to swine flu and public health authorities confirmed the finding on Tuesday.


Premier Dalton McGuinty expressed sympathy for the family, calling it a "terrible tragedy."

The province, he said, was doing everything it could to provide a vaccination program as quickly as possible.

"I continue to have confidence in our public health officials," McGuinty said.

"They're making the right decisions, getting the vaccine into the communities as quickly as they can and respecting the order of priorities that they've put in place."

Frustaglio refused to criticize the walk-in clinic, saying he was in too much grief to think about what might have been done differently.

However, he did warn parents against complacency or thinking that patients with swine flu will show symptoms for many days before deteriorating gradually.

"This didn't even take a day and a half - it hit my son within 10 minutes," he said.

"If any one of your children has any kind of flu-like symptoms, please don't take your eyes off of them. Make sure you get the medical attention you need and, if at any time, they don't seem right, especially with their breathing, just get medical attention."

Evan's family is taking Tamiflu as a precaution and immediately informed Evan's teammates of what had happened so they, too, could seek medical attention.

Evan is survived by his brother Will, 10, and his mom, Anne-Marie, who was too distressed to speak about her loss.

"I'm really having a hard time with this," she said.

Provincial Health Minister Deb Matthews said the "very sad case" should impress on people the need to get inoculated.

"The responsible thing to do, the right thing to do, is to get the vaccine," Matthews said.

"It doesn't protect just you, it protects all the people around you."

The death sparked an outpouring of sympathy and tributes on Facebook and YouTube, with numerous pictures and even a tribute video.

One Facebook writer said she hoped the tragedy would heighten awareness of the dangers of H1N1.

"I feel for your loss; my heart aches for your sorrow," Tracey Parr wrote.

"Hope Evan's passing will heighten the awareness of this flu, and preventative measures needed to be taken."

Frustaglio called Evan a "wonderful" boy who was "full of spirit." His son had switched this year to the Hill Academy north of Toronto - a small school with an emphasis on athletics - because "it was all about hockey."

"My son is gone. He was here just 24 hours ago and now he's not here. He was 13. He didn't deserve to die," he said.

"Whenever you hear stories like this in the press, I say to myself, 'Oh my god, I can never imagine how I could ever live without one of my kids,' and now I'm asking myself that question

Two of my grandsons, ages 11 and 13, are both recovering from the swine flu. The older one was diagnosed with it first and the entire family was given the approved treatment for it and they were all quarantined in their home for a minimum of 3 days.

A week after the older grandson got it, the younger one came down with it.

This was a few weeks ago.

My daughter-in-law has been sick for a couple of days and was just diagnosed with the swine flu today. She had been no where near my grandsons or their family. In fact, she lives in a different state. My son, her husband, is now sick, but not diagnosed yet. What I hate is that they have a little boy who is just 10 months old. He has already been hospitalized for that RSV virus, and has been continually sick with sinus problems, allergies, ear infections, etc. I am afraid his immune system is at rock bottom and will catch this from his mother. His pediatrician has prescribed him the preventative medicine. My DIL, since she can not vacate the house, was told to barricade herself in her room for at least 3 days.

I'm so sorry about your family coming down with it and your daughter-in-law becoming sick and the helplessness and worry you have over your daughter-in-law and your grandson with his immune system. My thoughts and prayers go with your family.

Swine flu is all over our county and at the Swine Flu vaccine clinics last Saturday all over our county, the TV media said the turn out was very large at the clincs, but still they had a lot of extra vaccine left over. But the vaccine is coming way too late for so many here.

Dr. Arlene King, Ontario's Chief Medical officer of Health says Evan Frustaglio's death was "a very, very rare occurrence."

I'll stick with the infectious disease experts and other experts that feel the swine flu panic and vaccine are worse than the swine flu.

rainbow

For the family that lost their son, this occurrence was not rare enough.

Kina.

Infectious disease specialist at Children's Memorial urges H1N1 vaccines for children
Launch ABC 7 story

October 14, 2009 - On ABC 7's 10 p.m. newscast, Tina Tan, MD, infectious disease specialist at Children's Memorial Hospital, urges familes to have their children vaccinated with the H1N1 vaccine. She says since young people are most susceptable to the flu, getting the vaccine is a life-saving measure. She also says that this vaccine has been tested more than the seasonal flu vaccine and that it is safe.

I saw a story recently on the news about a mother who had lost two children within 3 weeks of each other. Two teenagers - can't remember their ages (don't want to give wrong info). They supposedly didn't have any other underlying conditions either.
Absolutely tragic. I cannot even begin to imagine what that family has gone through.

Our Dr. here isnt' testing either. I had called about 3 weeks ago when my son was sick and they said that 98% of the flu that they were seeing was the Swine flu. At that time it wasn't the seasonal flu season. (is it now? I don't even know) I went to my Dr. yesterday - they had removed all magazines, reading materials, toys from the waiting room. They even recommended using your own pen to write your check - although they said they wipe them down often.

Our hospitals here are not allowing any visitors under 12 yrs old.
It's amazing that you still see people coughing all over the place, not covering their mouths with their elbow. My husband said he saw a woman at her son (around 10) putting their cart away at the store and he was hacking and wiping his nose on his hands then putting his hands on the handle of the cart. Everyone needs to think of others as well as themselves.

20/20 had a story on last night - you're supposed to wash your hands with soap for 20 seconds, even the researchers who were helping with the experiment admitted that they don't wash that long. If you use any hand sanitizers it has to have alcohol. You can probably look up the study they did.

That is so tragic -- the loss of two children within 3 weeks.

When I was grocery shopping about three weeks ago there was a woman coughing without covering her mouth. She must have been getting some looks because she kept loudly proclaiming "it's okay, I have chronic bronchitis". Oh my, so it's okay to cough your bacterial laden germs all over the produce. I really had to force myself to keep my big mouth shut but I did.

You are right, everyone needs to think of others as well as themselves. I keep a bottle of alcohol based hand sanitizer in my car and use it liberally especially after grocery shopping. The alcohol does kill most viruses. Unfortunately, until people cover their mouths when they cough, we can't control the germs we inhale.

Hopefully, this flu will pass quickly with no more tragedies.

Kina.

During a flu season I was at a McDonald's and I put my tray down next to me and was getting a drink (that I had the tray was amazing because I'm in an electric scooter and scootering with a tray can sometimes end up with your food all over). Well as I'm doing my drink, this 10 year old was coughing really bad all over my food.

I had a fit and was yelling at the kid and her mother about coughing on another's food, and about learning to cover one's mouth and turn away from others. I then went to the front, explained what happened and they threw away the food, and put the tray as dirty, and they got a fresh tray and all fresh food and walked it to a seat for me.

But I realized how many parents never teach their children manners--and coughing on someone's food is really poor manners.

So I hope now during the swine flu phase that parents and teachers are really pushing kids as to how to cough and about runny noses and such. But who teaches the parents and adults?? Walmart makes a good alcohol cleaner and it even comes in "take along" packets that you can put in a pocket, a back pack or even your pocketbook. But it's no good if someone is coughing on you.



[This Message was Edited on 11/01/2009]

As he prepared to bury his son, Frustaglio had a message to parents and everyone else to hold their children and loved ones close.


"The kiss of life is fleeting," he said in his eulogy. "It is over before you know it. So never let the obligations of life distract you from the cherished gift of family."