Conn. Anthrax Case Baffles Investigators
Nov. 22 -- Authorities are still baffled about how a 94-year-old Connecticut woman became infected with the inhalation anthrax that killed her.
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When Ottillie Lundgren first tested positive for the deadly bacteria, doctors thought perhaps she could have become infected from a natural source, but discussions with the woman indicated that could not have been the case.
"Initially there was hope because of the location in Oxford, which is a rarural farm community, that she may have had some environmental exposure," Dr. Kenneth Dobuler, chief of medicine at Griffin Hospital, said today on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "Further questioning from her family, her friends and the patient herself did not show any evidence that she had come into contact with cows, sheep, goats or any other potential environmental source."
Investigators are now looking at possible cross-contamination of mail that Lundgren received.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Wednesday that Lundgren had tested positive for inhalation anthrax, five days after she was admitted to Griffin Hospital in Derby, Conn., complaining of respiratory problems.
Doctors at first thought she had pneumonia. But five preliminary tests conducted at the hospital came out positive for inhalation anthrax, leading authorities to contact the CDC for additional testing.
"With the notoriety of this and the rapidity with which she was treated, we had some hope she might be able to rally, but at age 94 things certainly didn't go as we and her family would have wished," Dobuler said.
Lundgren died at 10:32 a.m, and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said officials were doing their best to try to determine how she contracted the disease.
"We send our condolences to the victim's entire family. We are currently doing our best through a medical and criminal investigation to find out the source of the woman's disease," Thompson said.
A retired woman who lived alone on a farm in Oxford, Conn., about 20 miles from New Haven, Lundgren had a sedentary lifestyle, rarely going out except for trips to church and the local beauty parlor. Officials are at a loss as to an explanation of how and where she came in contact with the deadly bacteria.
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