Traverse City Record-Eagle

Antrim County

November 20, 2009

Swine flu claims area's first victim

Bellaire man is first local H1N1 casualty

BY LINDSAY VANHULLE

BELLAIRE -- Dustin Robinson was healthy.

He hadn't come down with the flu since he was a child, had no underlying health conditions and was vaccinated this fall against the seasonal virus to keep it that way.

But 11 days later, on a Saturday in late October, Robinson, 23, began to run a high fever. He developed chills and body aches. Classic flu signs.

Robinson, of Bellaire, died Wednesday at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor of suspected complications from the H1N1 strain of influenza known as swine flu, his family said.

A hospital spokeswoman confirmed he died there, but could not offer details.

Robinson could be the first swine flu-related death from northern Michigan since the illness surfaced in the spring.

"He was just sweet and funny and quirky," his mother, Sherri Robinson, said Thursday of her son, a student at the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District Adult Work Center. "He liked to do puzzles and he enjoyed music. Just a sweetheart."

The Health Department of Northwest Michigan, which represents Antrim, Otsego, Charlevoix and Emmet counties, confirmed a death due to H1N1 in its four-county district Thursday, spokeswoman Jane Sundmacher said.

She would not confirm it was Robinson, but said the patient died Wednesday.

State health officers are investigating another death in the department's jurisdiction. That death involves someone other than Robinson and is not the one confirmed Thursday, Sundmacher said.

The department typically does not announce details of investigated deaths unless or until they are confirmed through laboratory tests, she said. The process can take weeks.

The case in question began before Robinson died, Sundmacher said. Deaths are tracked in an official state communicable disease database.

"There is no record of a death in any of our four counties," she said. "I'm not saying that there hasn't been."

Individual counties are responsible for reporting swine flu deaths to the state, where they then are aggregated and reported by age range, said James McCurtis, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Community Health.

"We know where the person died and we know where the person resides," he said. "We do not know which county is taking ownership of it until later on, when that county informs us."

Robinson lived in Antrim County. He died in Washtenaw County.

At first, he seemed to be recovering. His fever broke Oct. 27, but his condition worsened the next day, Sherri Robinson said.

He was taken Oct. 29 to Munson Medical Center in Traverse City and was airlifted a day later to Ann Arbor. Doctors tested her son for H1N1, Sherri Robinson said, and the tests were positive.

Dustin Robinson was diagnosed with double pneumonia, a secondary complication, and connected to a machine that simulated a lung bypass, his mother said. The hope was to relieve stress on his lungs so they could heal.

She said he developed a blood clot Wednesday.

"I just know that he wouldn't have been able to fight as long as he did" without doctors' efforts, she said. "Everything that they learned by trying to help Dustin will help someone else, and that makes us feel good."

Besides his mother, Dustin Robinson is survived by his father, Michael, and his brother Mick, 5.

A spaghetti dinner will be held Sunday at Shanty Creek Resorts in Bellaire to raise money for the family.

How to help

A spaghetti dinner will be held this weekend to raise money for the family of Dustin Robinson, 23, who died Wednesday of suspected complications from the H1N1 influenza strain known as swine flu.

The benefit will be held from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday in the Bellaire Ballroom in Shanty Creek Resorts' Summit Village.

Costs are $10 per person and $5 for children 7 and younger. A silent auction will be included in the event.

In addition, donations can be made to the Dustin Robinson Family Fund at any Alden State Bank location.

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- Editorial: Answers on swine flu
- Interactive Multimedia: A closer look at the pandemic

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