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Death Of Student Raises Meningitis Concerns

Jay Nolan / Tribune photo

Alyssa Wennlund, left, comforts Amber Powers during a service for Powers' roommate, Rachel A. Futterman. Futterman died over the weekend after contracting bacterial meningitis.

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By ADAM EMERSON and ELLEN GEDALIUS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 25, 2007

TAMPA - Many barely knew her, but they were stunned by the news that an infection killed one of their schoolmates in a matter of days.

By late Monday, 171 University of South Florida students received the vaccination against bacterial meningitis, a contagious disease that struck the outgoing, vivacious Rachel Futterman.

Futterman died Monday, two days after she suffered a seizure in the Delta Gamma sorority house on campus.

She was 19.

Her illness and subsequent death prompted dozens of students to line up outside the campus health center. University health officials had available 200 doses of the vaccine on Monday. By the end of the day, they ordered 200 more.

The vaccination, available to students for $90, is not required among those living on campus. Instead, they are shown information about meningitis and asked whether they have been vaccinated.

They can acknowledge they received the information, however, and decline the vaccine. The university doesn't ask for proof of vaccination, as it does for measles or rubella, said Egilda Terenzi, director of student health services.

USF officials now say they may discuss whether to require the meningitis vaccination. "That's one possibility among others that will be explored," Terenzi said.

Many students aren't waiting. They began arriving at the campus health clinic early Monday - some scared, some ready with the $90 vaccination fee. Some who didn't have the money called their parents for help.

Terenzi said she doesn't have the money in her budget to offer the vaccination free. The cost students paid for the vaccine, Menactra, was what the university paid to get each dose, she said.

Although the cost surprised some students, they paid it.

"You never know what could happen," said Monica Estornell, 19, who opted out of taking the vaccine when she started at USF last year but sought it with three friends Monday. Estornell said she shared a dormitory bathroom with a friend of Futterman's.

Terenzi spent much of Monday calming students such as Estornell, assuring them that casual contact with Futterman wouldn't require antibiotics.

As many as 70 of those closest to Futterman received the antibiotic Cipro, Terenzi said.

Many of them were her sorority sisters from Delta Gamma, who were among up to 600 people who came to a memorial service Monday night celebrating Futterman's life.

Many shared their memories of Futterman before viewing a slide show of photographs of a smiling, laughing 19-year-old. They shared their anecdotes through tears.

Most of the hundreds who attended the memorial were members of fraternities and sororities, and they wore ribbons of baby blue, pink and bronze - the colors of Delta Gamma.

All in her sorority house, and many others in the Greek community at USF, plan to attend funeral services at a Jacksonville chapel today. The service was scheduled to begin 3:30 p.m. at Town & Country Funeral Home on the grounds of Riverside Memorial Park, 7242 Normandy Blvd.

"She was the only one who knew what to say during the hardest times of my life," said Amber Powers, 19, Futterman's roommate.

She Was Active In High School

Futterman was a standout student and athlete at Lake Mary Preparatory School, a private school she attended for four years before moving to Texas in her senior year.

She was a dancer and a cheerleader and a basketball player. Not only was she popular - wearing the homecoming princess crown during her junior year - but she also was involved in Teens in Action, a community service program at the school. And she served on student council.

She also loved playing on the school's tennis and volleyball teams, particularly shining on the volleyball court, said Kathy Benefiel, the school's athletics director.

"She was a strong leader out there," Benefiel said. "She was one to get the girls going.

"She was very happy, always smiling. 'Vivacious' is probably the best word to describe her."

Her roommate, Powers, found Futterman after the seizure. Sorority sisters say that Futterman seemed lethargic Friday, one day after she finished her morning shift at Gator's Dockside restaurant just east of the USF campus.

She slept most of the day and complained of an upset stomach, thinking she had the flu, said Alyssa Wennlund, the sorority's USF chapter president.

At 7:30 a.m. Saturday, Futterman had the seizure, Wennlund said. Paramedics rushed her to University Community Hospital.

USF health officials first told the sorority sisters that Futterman had viral meningitis, a relatively common form of meningitis that rarely is fatal. It was later Saturday that university and county health officials told the women that Futterman had suffered from the more serious bacterial form, which inflames the tissue that covers the brain and spinal cord.

"That's when we definitely started to get scared," Wennlund said.

Spread At Restaurant Unlikely

Symptoms of meningitis sometimes are mistaken for flu and include high fever, severe headache, stiff neck, rash, nausea and vomiting.

The disease is contagious and can be spread by sharing a drinking cup or eating utensils or by kissing, coughing and sneezing.

It is not transmitted through casual contact, so diners at Gators Dockside, 5840 Fowler Ave., where Futterman worked on Thursday, should not be concerned, said Warren McDougle, epidemiology manager for the Hillsborough County Health Department.

Customers served by Futterman would be at "very low risk for the disease," McDougle said, and probably already would have symptoms.

The restaurant's general manager, Taurus Leon, said that Futterman had been working there since January. She started as a host and food runner and recently started training as a server, he said.

Leon let many of the co-workers close to Futterman go home Monday. "This was someone their age, someone they just saw," Leon said.

County health officials talked to workers at the restaurant over the weekend about how the infection spreads, Leon said. To his knowledge, none of Futterman's co-workers received the antibiotic.

The antibiotic is a one-dose pill, and those who had contact with Futterman paid nothing for it.

The university must continue to charge for the vaccine, however. The Hillsborough County Health Department offers the vaccine free, through a federally funded program, to people 18 or younger. Older patients must pay $92.

"The vaccine is clearly underused," said John Sinnott, chief of infectious diseases at USF and Tampa General Hospital. "It offers protection against 70-75 percent of the strains."

The vaccine takes about two weeks to become fully effective, Sinnott said, and is good for at least three and as many as five years.

"The shots are an expense," Sinnott said. "A lot of students don't have a lot of money. The development of a vaccine like that is billions of dollars. It's a small price to pay."

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285 or aemerson@tampatrib.com. Reporter Ellen Gedalius can be reached at (813) 259-7679 or egedalius@tampatrib.com.

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