Atlanta - A two-year-old girl exposed to the E.coli bacteria while playing in a public pool for toddlers, has become the first child to die in an outbreak that affected 26 children, a hospital spokeswoman said . McCall Akin had been in a coma since she was taken to Scottish Rite Children's Hospital more than five weeks ago and three days after she fell ill from the bacteria at a children's pool at White Water Recreation Park in Marietta, Georgia. The park is about 15 miles north of Atlanta.
She died after suffering a stroke and several seizures.
"She died yesterday at 2:33 p.m. (EDT)," hospital spokeswoman Kim Lathbury said. "She had been here since June 15 and was in critical condition the whole time."
The hospital is still treating one other victim, a four-year-old girl who was in good condition .
A friend of McCall's family said the child died in the arms of her mother, Marisa Akin, who with her husband, Andy Akin, had kept a vigil at the child's bedside. McCall was their only child.
"Her mother was holding her and rocking her and it was a very peaceful death,' the friend, Mark Long, told the Atlanta Journal.
Lathbury said the child's life had been maintained by a respirator and a kidney dialysis machine. She suffered a stroke and several seizures from the disease, which usually is caused by eating undercooked, contaminated meat.
McCall, however, was a vegetarian. When doctors learned that, they began to suspect many of the cases of E.coli they were seeing were caused by something other than hamburgers.
In questioning parents over a two-week span in late June, doctors learned that one thing the children had in common was a visit to the water park.
They alerted health officials who traced the outbreak to a children's pool in the Captain's Cove section of the park.
In all, 26 cases of E.coli were traced to the park by epidemiologists with the Georgia Division of Public Health. Many of the children were from other states.
The epidemiologists concluded the outbreak was caused by an infected child who defecated in the pool. Chlorination kills the E.coli bacteria within 60 seconds but pool aeration allowed it to spread rapidly, the epidemiologists said.
White Water General Manager Sonny Horton said: "Our deepest prayers and sympathies go out to the family of McCall Akin for their loss. When it is appropriate, we will communicate these sympathies to the family and friends of this child."
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