The thought of losing his college tuition may have saved Mark Lakevold’s life from the deadly hantavirus.
Officials at Edmonton’s Northern Alberta Institute of Technology told the Provost, Alta. man if he didn’t show up to register for mechanics classes at the beginning of September he would lose money he had paid for tuition.
Lakevold went, even though he felt like sleeping rather than driving the four hours to Edmonton to register for classes. The day before doctors at Provost hospital told him he had a bad case of the flu.
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But a teacher at the technical college, alarmed by the sick-looking Lakevold, took him to the school nurse. Shortly after he was taken to Royal Alexander hospital where he spent the next 10 days in intensive care close to death.
“It was the only thing that saved me. If I wouldn’t have gone to school, I would have stayed home and slept.
“I was right on the edge of dying. Another few hours and I would have died,” said Lakevold who doesn’t remember much from his time in hospital.
This is the 12th confirmed case of hantavirus in Alberta.
Lurks in the air
Hantavirus is a rare but deadly virus usually carried on the feces and urine of deer mice and spreads when people breath in particles in the air. It usually means death.
It can take as long as a month for symptoms of hantavirus to develop, so Lakevold is not sure where he contracted the disease. He thinks he caught the virus when he unfolded a tarp to cover a vehicle on his Provost acreage.
Baby deer mice were nesting in the tarp, which he shook out, and then used to cover the car.
Like most people who live to tell the tale, Lakevold will never look at mice the same way.
“I didn’t think I’d get it, but it’s pretty bad when you get it.”
Since the official confirmation of hantavirus, Gordon Corcoran, public health inspector for the East Central Regional Health Authority in Wainwright, Alta., has started trapping mice around the acreage.
One night he caught 10 mice, most of them deer mice, the only variety that carries the virus. Those mice will be sent to Ottawa for testing.
Deer mice have grey backs with lighter coloring underneath.
