5-Year-Old Max Gomez Dies From Swine Flu, Leaving Doctors Perplexed and Family Devastated

Tennessee case has medical experts puzzled.

ByABC News via logo
September 14, 2009, 7:58 PM

Sept. 15, 2009— -- The Aug. 28 weekend started out happily for 5-year-old Max Gomez. The cheerful and precocious boy from Antioch, Tenn., had just started kindergarten and was looking forward to a church trip to the zoo.

He seemed perfectly fine that Friday, but by Monday night, the apparently healthy boy was dead.

Max's case of swine flu has left doctors perplexed, with autopsy results pending to determine any underlying health conditions. Of the 36 children who have died so far of the H1N1 virus, two-thirds have had some underlying medical condition that made them more susceptible to the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But until he fell ill that weekend, Max was a perfectly healthy child.

"Max had gotten sick in the past," his mother, Ruth Gomez, told The Tennessean newspaper. "He'd had strep and ear infections, but he always came through. But, this time, everything happened so fast."

It all began on a Friday.

Max woke up Saturday with a fever that peaked a little higher than 102 degrees, according to The Tennessean. Although high, experts say, a 102-degree fever is not, in itself, a red flag.

"One-hundred-and-two is not that uncommon," ABC's News' Dr. Richard Besser said.

His parents suspected routine illness and gave him an an analgesic.

By Sunday morning, Max's fever was gone, and he seemed playful and, more or less, back to normal. Still, his parents decided he should stay home from a church trip to the zoo.

Yet the next morning -- Monday -- the fever returned, along with a case of the chills.

Max's mother took her son to a local walk-in clinic, where the attending physician reported nothing out of the ordinary. But as soon as he returned home, Max's health continued to decline rapidly.

That evening, at 6 p.m., as his fatigue increased, Max's parents rushed him to Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

Less than three hours later, he died.