Three very strange diseases (including hantavirus) afflicted three Lander women over three decades, killing them all. I covered those stories and still marvel at the coincidence of them all happening in little Lander.
Today, with renewed focus on hantavirus, I was reminded of what I believe was the only death from that disease ever recorded in Fremont County. There have been seven total deaths in the state. It was an odd story to tell.
These were all horrible tragedies with people struck down in the prime of their lives. All were sad stories to write. Two were good friends.
My Hantavirus starts when I was on a commercial flight from Riverton to Denver in August 1993 when a prominent member of our local medical establishment sat down next to me. He was clearly excited. Something big had happened, he said, but he could not tell me because I was a member of the press.
I assured him there was no way I could write about it. After all, I was on a plane headed away from Fremont County. That was enough.
He told me about Irene Evelyn Harris Pederson, 64, who had died at the Lander hospital after suffering mysterious symptoms. At the time, there was a national scare involving hantavirus, and doctors here in Wyoming were stunned when tests suggested that was what killed her.
Hantavirus is far more common in places like New Mexico and Arizona. And yet, here in Wyoming, we not only had a case, we had a death.
Later, it was learned the victim and her husband had been exploring ancient sites in Arizona, where she was likely exposed. She became ill after returning home to Lander and soon died.
When I arrived at the Denver airport, I found a pay phone and dictated the story to our news editor back in Lander. It appeared in that afternoon’s edition. It was a great scoop but a lot of our local and state medical people were not happy. As a news organization we felt it important to let local folks know about this danger. At the time, we assumed she had been exposed in Fremont County.
The State Medical Examiner did not officially confirm the cause of death for seven months. But we had the story first.
Legionnaire’s Disease
The next two deaths hit much closer to home.
Jane Chapman, 71, was a prominent nurse and a member of the Lander City Council. Her husband, Garve, was a dear friend and a regular at the “Fox News All-Stars” coffee club.
The couple had traveled to Las Vegas. When they returned, Jane became gravely ill and died at the Riverton hospital on Sept. 16, 2009. At first, no one knew what had killed her.
Then an inquisitive visiting physician took an interest in the case. After considerable sleuthing, she determined Jane had contracted Legionnaire’s disease, likely from a faulty air-conditioning system in their Las Vegas hotel.
It is a rare illness that first gained national attention in the 1970s, when attendees at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia fell ill. Dozens died.
Garve never understood why Jane became sick and he did not.
Wyoming’s Only Rabies Death
Another prominent Lander woman, Karen Farthing, 77, is believed to be the only person in Wyoming to ever die from rabies. She died Oct. 5, 2015.
She and her husband, Bill, awoke one night to find a bat in their bedroom. Karen brushed it away. Bill, wearing gloves, captured it and released it outside. They saw no signs of a bite, not even a break in the skin.
Their daughter, Lynn McRann, later shared the story in hopes others might avoid the same tragedy.
After an evening entertaining guests, the couple had left their front door open. Sometime during the night, the bat entered.
Karen felt something on the bed and brushed it away.
“It was then that they discovered it was a bat,” McRann wrote. “They waited for it to land, covered it with a towel, and our dad carefully removed it.”
Bill examined Karen’s hand with a magnifying glass for days. There was never any visible bite.
Forty-one days later, she began showing symptoms.
Her family rushed her to Salt Lake City, but doctors could not save her. The illness progressed quickly. Within 12 days, she was gone.
Three Odd Deaths
With all the recent news about hantavirus, I was reminded of these three tragic and unusual deaths, all in one small Wyoming town.
Each case was different. Each was rare. And each serve as a reminder that even the most unlikely dangers sometimes find their way to our doorstep.
Bill can be reached at Bill@CowboyStateDaily.com
