I was infected with hantavirus... within weeks I was hospitalised

"I had to be on my hands and knees, and there's poop all along the edges, you know, everywhere. And so my face was this close to it. She would have been exposed to the rodent droppings for no more than five minutes - but that's all it took for the pathogen to take hold."

"About a week later, she began to feel very ill, with severe neck and back pain along with problems breathing. Her memory from this time is foggy, but she remembers visiting the hospital multiple times asking for help and being sent away with either the flu or pneumonia."

"HPS, a complication of hantavirus, causes fluid to build up in the lungs, leading to breathing difficulties, respiratory failure, and can be deadly in around 38 percent of cases. I flatlined (died) twice, and they couldn't get me ventilated because I was just too erratic, and they couldn't get me sedated."

Debbie Zipperian from Montana contracted hantavirus in 2011 after brief exposure to infected deer mouse droppings while cleaning a chicken coop. She inhaled pathogenic spores during approximately five minutes of contact with contaminated waste. Within a week, she developed severe symptoms including neck and back pain, breathing difficulties, and confusion. Despite multiple hospital visits, doctors initially misdiagnosed her condition as flu or pneumonia. On her third visit, she was finally diagnosed with Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS), a complication causing fluid accumulation in the lungs. Her condition deteriorated critically, resulting in two cardiac arrests and extreme agitation that prevented proper sedation and ventilation. HPS carries a 38 percent fatality rate.

Read at Mail Online