The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Flu death inspires mother to raise awareness
Christy Pugh and David Splan did everything right.
Every fall, Pugh and Splan got their young daughter, Emma, a flu shot. They knew the importance of covering sneezes and washing hands. And when 6yearold Emma came down with flu symptoms in February 2018, they kept her home from school for several days and gave her plenty of rest and fluids.
“Honestly, she wasn’t really that sick,” Pugh, a former Norwalk resident, said from the living room of
her family’s Southbury home, throughout which pictures of Emma, with her bright smile and big blue eyes, are hung. “We played, we watched movies, we built forts, we went for short little walks outside. I think the reason she wasn’t that sick the whole time is because of the flu shot. So her symptoms were far less severe than they could’ve been.”
For several days, Emma, a Columbus Magnet School firstgrader who loved school and her classmates, appeared to be successfully fighting off the flu. But around midnight on Feb. 16, she started throwing up. The vomiting continued into the next morning, at which point her parents took Emma to pediatric urgent care, where antinausea medicine eventually appeared to alleviate some of the symptoms.
“She was very lethargic, very weak,” Pugh remembered. “Overall, she was just really not great looking. She just looked miserable, so they told us to take her back home — rest, fluids, etcetera — and call back if there were any other issues.”
The family stopped at a CVS to purchase Pedialyte, returned home, bathed Emma, dressed her in a warm pair of pajamas and turned on a movie. Then Emma vomited again.
“I was like, ‘She shouldn’t be throwing up after all this Zofran (antinausea medication),’” Pugh said. So they took Emma to Stamford Hospital’s Pediatric Emergency Room, where Emma’s condition began to worsen and horror of the situation began to set in on Pugh and her husband.
“That’s when things got really scary,” Pugh said. “She was in and out of consciousness. They were pumping her full of fluids. The head doctor kept asking me if she hit her head — she was just not coherent. I’m pacing back and forth in the hallways, completely freaking out, throwing up in the trash can, losing my mind.”
Emma was eventually transferred to Yale New Haven Hospital for further treatment, where a brief glimmer of hope turned quickly to despair.
“They get her into the room and it is night and day,” Pugh said. “She is sitting up. She is talking, the color is back to her face. I was like, ‘thank you, Lord, we’ve turned a corner.’ We’re talking to her, giving her hugs and kisses, talking about, we’re going to do all this fun stuff when we leave... Then she told Dave, ‘Dada, I can’t breathe.’ He told her to not worry about it. They laid her down and she coughed and she died. It was like a light switch.”
Emma Splan died Feb. 18, 2018, a few months short of her seventh birthday, from complications related to the flu. Pugh eventually learned the cause of death was myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, often brought on by infection, which is a common sideeffect of the flu, but one that only rarely results in death.
Knowing firsthand the risks and tragedy the flu can bring, Pugh has made prevention her mission and is working with Families Fighting Flu — a national organization dedicated to protecting communities against the illness — which in turn has partnered with
Clorox, to spread awareness.
The work comes at a crucial time, as skepticism over the effectiveness of the vaccine is widespread, despite two consecutive flu seasons in Connecticut that have resulted in high numbers of fatalities and hospitalizations.
From December 2018 through April 2019, according to the Connecticut Department of Public Health, there were 88 flurelated deaths in the state and 3,506 hospitalizations, second only to the 201718 flu season, during which 184 deaths and 3,895 hospitalizations were reported. As of November, two flu deaths had already been reported in Connecticut this season.
For Pugh, the work comes at a great personal cost — not just because it forces her to relive the events of February 2018, but also because she’s often become a target for flushot doubters, who question her advocacy given Emma’s death.
“I know that there are people who don’t believe in vaccinations and people who don’t believe in the flu shot,” Pugh said. “And there are people who get very angry with me for promoting the flu shot, even though my child has passed. But, frankly, it’s why you put on a seat belt every day. People die in car accidents all the time, but you always put on your seat belt. Why would you not stack the deck in your favor?”
But Pugh has endured the personal attacks and has begun working with Families Fighting Flu in recent months to provide greater access to flu vaccinations and to develop school initiatives, which she hopes to bring to Norwalk, to better raise awareness.
She’s also carrying on her daughter’s memory through her charity, Emma’s Plan, which has three pillars: animals, children and the arts.
Pugh works with shelters like PAWS in Norwalk, where Emma volunteered reading to animals, at which people can sponsor animals, buy an item off their wish list, or make a donation in Emma’s name. Pugh also makes “Kitty Quilts,” inspired by Emma’s love for kittens, and their shared love of sewing.
“Emma and I liked to sew together. She liked to design her ‘fashions,’ as she called them, and make her baby doll clothes. She had her own purple sewing machine,” Pugh said. “It was something that we like to do together, but it was also something that I liked to do before her. And it was a way for me to give a piece of the two of us back to her friends and other students and other people who would be touched by her story.”
After Emma’s death, Pugh put out a call for “kitty blocks,” which are square pieces of fabric in the shape of cats, which she then sews into quilts at her home sewing machine, on which a photograph of Emma is taped.
In less than two years, she’s received more than 4,000 blocks — from farflung parts of the world, like South Africa, the United Kingdom, and all around the United States — and distributed quilts to friends of Emma and Norwalk Public Schools, among many others.
The quilts are a celebration of Emma’s life and a reminder of how it was cut short. The flu shot, ultimately, didn’t prevent Emma’s death, but Pugh believes that by doing the right thing, and getting vaccinated, it can help many other families.
“I do it because I strongly believe in the flu shot,” Pugh said. “It didn’t work for us, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not going to work for somebody else. And if we can prevent any other family losing their child, or frankly anybody they love, it’s worth it to me.”