[Music] a small town becomes a death zone a lethal bacteria is loose and it prays upon young children parents are in anguish doctors are powerless to stop it as hospitals fill with the sick and dying Health officials search for the source of the killer terrified parents can only wonder is my child next [Music] [Applause] [Music] some of the names in this program have been changed it was the middle of the night May 18th 2000 8-year-old Allison Taylor was sick and she was getting worse by the minute Mary Taylor rushed her daughter to Owens sound Hospital in Ontario Canada home I know sweetie I know I'm trying to hurry for days Allison had complained of flu symptoms now she was in excruciating pain Mary was afraid she'd made a terrible mistake by not bringing her daughter to the hospital sooner can I get you to help me please her put her down on the gar Allison was burning with fever what do we have here she was so dehydrated she was too weak to hold her head up got here the ER PID the hospital's pediatric specialist and how long has she had these symptoms it's been going on for a several days and I thought it would go away it's getting worse I think hi I'm Dr Allison's symptoms were severe what are you feeling right now what's hurting stomach's hurting your stomach's hurting and I'm going to press on some spots in your stomach and you tell me if it hurts okay I'm going to start right here right here oh that hurt it's kind of tender what about down here that hurt acute abdominal pain could indicate the presence of a massive infection as an experienced pediatrician Dr howed proceeded with caution she would treat the dehydration and fever with fluids and anti- fever medications she been having um diarrhea pretty bad the stomach cramps fever the initial treatment for voming diarrhea is generally to treat them with supportive treatment the the idea is that your body is vomiting and having diarrhea generally for a purpose your body's trying to get rid of a toxin they're trying to get rid of a bacteria Mary had not given Allison any anti-diarrheal medication it was a good decision according to Dr howlet it's generally recommended that you don't give them anything to stop the diarrhea particularly because then you're actually keeping the bacteria within the gut even longer and then you may increase your you're risk of having complications Dr howed was worried Allison's severe dehydration could have serious consequences I think we need to admit her okay okay halet wanted to monitor her symptoms Allison was transferred to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit there she was given fluids intravenously vomiting and diarrhea had depleted the child's body of water and minerals without them her heart struggled to pump blood to her vital organs Allison's fluids had to be replenished otherwise her organs would fail and she would die temperature want to take your temperature dehydration is very dangerous in small children the doctors could prescribe antibiotics but until they knew exactly what they were dealing with it could be ineffective or even dangerous antibiotics aren't generally recommended until you've actually determined the type of bug that's causing the diarrhea because there always is a risk that you could make things worse Chang some bacteria when killed by antibiotics will release deadly toxins and so you really felt that there's so much you'd like to be able to help with but you couldn't do she has been complaining of pain and um as the hours passed Allison's condition deteriorated she had developed blood in her stool and her temperature was climbing complaining of a lot of pain she is and she's been real restless and it's been unable to sleep and she's been then Dr howed received alarming news about another child in the ICU the Thomas boys develop blood in the stool okay let's order stool sample for her all right pet sensed she was dealing with something out of the ordinary she was more right than she knew 9-year-old Jack Thomas' symptoms were identical to Allison's his severe diarrhea left him listless and dehydrated the cases were too similar for doctors who treat infectious diseases even small coincidences set off alarm Bells I started to wonder if there was a link between the two kids and you don't usually see two people with bloody diarrhea within one day bloody diarrhea was an unusual symptom and an important clue intestinal bleeding is often the sign of an infection caused by a virus a parasite or a foodborn bacteria to determine if it was a bacteria stool samples were placed in a culture medium an environment where bacteria will readily grow the cultures would need to incubate for over 24 hours for the doctors and staff at Owens sound Hospital the weight was endless they had two desperately sick children to care for doctors feared it was a dangerous infection [Music] howlet was candid with the parents she told them that some children with these symptoms develop kidney failure what I suspect is a a condition that can lead to death the parents were terrified to get results from it was really at that time that I had concerned that this was a much larger outbreak I also recognize that it's the public Health's job to get in there right away and to determine this the source of the infection at the public health unit Bev Middleton launched an investigation she suspected the children had eaten contaminated food she called the private school in Walkerton where both Allison and Jack were enrolled wonder if you could help me out seen any increase in your absenteeism she asked if the school served lunches it did not any community events any school functions she then searched for anything else the two children might have in common I was looking for an event that might have taken place at the school a common food source a common food event that would have exposed these two children there had been no common function at the school then she uncovered the beginning of a public health nightmare they had about 25 children who were ill and four more had become ill at school and had been sent home the school nurse was overwhelmed mhm a total of 29 children had been stricken with stomach cramps diarrhea and vomiting it was an ominous sign that many cases could mean only one thing they were facing a dangerous epidemic and it was spreading quickly we'll be following up Middleton called every school in Walkerton she learned that a quarter of the students at the public elementary school were also sick there were no reports of illness among Walkerton Junior High and high school students an infection was rampant in the school system but it was only targeting the town's youngest children for now the walk in hospital had seen eight patients all were experiencing a 3-day history of diarrhea with an onset of bloody diarrhea which prompted the parents to bring the children into the emergency department Middleton knew that a biological Predator was loose somewhere in Walkerton she didn't know that it was just the beginning across town at the Maple Court retirement Villa an unusual number of residents were getting sick worried staff nurses advised Joanne Todd the administrator of the facility by Friday afternoon we had three residents with the same symptoms our policies dictate that we go to outbreak procedures which means that we then contact the health unit and advise them that we have three residents ill with the same symptoms and it could possibly be indicative of an outbreak situation the elderly res residents had developed the same symptoms at the same time as the children it was an unusual development and an important clue children and the elderly do not eat the same types of foods we were looking at common events things that would bring these two populations together Middleton looked back to try and identify when the patients had gotten sick we were looking at what happened on the weekend prior to that of course it was Mother's Day weekend which would have lots of visitation to both the nursing homes and to our local restaurants influx of people into the community as well if a restaurant in Walkerton had served tainted food over the holiday weekend hundreds of people could be infected by Saturday morning cultures taken from the sick children had incubated for over 24 hours they were covered with bacterial growth scientists now had to determine the type of bacteria a sample from the culture was treated with a reagent solution if the paper turned blue it would identify the bacteria the results confirm the doctor's worst fears the children were infected with ecoli 0157 a deadly bacteria eoli multiplies with breathtaking speed one cell becomes a trillion in 24 hours the bacteria is also armed with a deadly weapon it releases a toxic poison that attacks the cells of the intestine and causes bleeding the invisible Menace is taken very seriously by Health officials like Dr Murray [Music] mcquigley on the planet because it just takes a little bit to make people terribly ill goodness the unique thing about EOL I57 is that most of the toxin is produced in Peaks early in other words by the time you get diarrhea you may be in big trouble already for these children and their parents it was a terrifying diagnosis there is no known cure for eoli o157 the bacteria is a notorious killer in 1993 an outbreak in Seattle Washington infected 700 people and killed four children The Source was contaminated ground beef served by a popular fast food chain 95% of eoli 157 in North America's food born now it's called hamburger disease for a good reason cuz ground hamburger is often the source of this if it's not cooked uh properly in Walkerton Health officials contacted every patient to find out what they had eaten over the past 4 days you can ask if there's any Common Thread that goes through those people that have that symptom were they out at a church barbecue for instance were they attending a school function where undercook hamburgers were served so you can go through a checklist of questions which they did to to try and narrow down were the majority of these people at the same place eating the same food but none of the patients had eaten at the same place they were back to Square 1 they had no idea where the eoli was coming from and patience kept coming on Friday evening 7-year-old Stephanie Martin was rushed to Walkerton hospital she was in critical condition until officials could find the source of the deadly Outbreak The Children of Walkerton as well as the very old were all potential [Music] victims in the spring of 2000 an epidemic ravaged a small town in Ontario Canada Health officials were in a panic they couldn't find the source of the deadly ecoli bacteria children and the elderly were struck down by the illness bring her right in here when 7-year-old Stephanie Mar arrived in the emergency room she was barely conscious because there is no cure for eoli doctors could only treat her symptoms the little girl was dangerously dehydrated her case was the worst they had seen by far before she was brought to the hospital she had been given medication to stop her diarrhea the toxic infection was now trapped in her body increasing the danger of complications by Saturday morning the third day of the outbreak the Walkerton Health Care system was completely overwhelmed every hour more patients arrived in the emergency room as a public health investigator Bev Middleton was alarmed when I called the Walkerton Hospital for an update I was advised that they had seen another 20 patients in their emergency department 10 children 10 adults by day three of the outbreak doctors had seen 40 patients the eoli was not just attacking The Young and the old the disease was infecting every age group you have the new Cas using patient information Health officials track the spread of the outbreak all the patients lived in Walkerton but there were no other obvious links between them and no common food sources listed in their 4-day eating histories Saturday afternoon the outbreak took an even more terrifying turn [Music] cases from areas outside Walkerton began arriving at the hospital the epidemic was spreading fast 4-year-old Molly glass was from Hanover a town nearby she was suffering from stomach cramps vomiting and diarrhea we were getting quite concerned we had cases in Hanover and other places in our district and we wondered if in fact the problem was in Walker or someplace else that we missed when doctors questioned Molly's parents the trail of evidence LED them right back to where they started we were able to determine that the family had gone to Walkerton on May 14th for Mother's Day dinner and they had a 1day exposure to Walkerton the source of the outbreak must be in Walkerton but mcqu now suspected it was not food related we' looked hard for a possible food source for this there just wasn't one so if there isn't one you and we were convinced of that we said to ourselves what else can it be uh it's across a broad range of Ages and people in Walkerton um food doesn't usually do that mcquigg looked for a geographical connection his investigators used patient addresses to see if the outbreak was centered in one part of town we had a map of walkeran and with a yellow highlighter we started to highlight the streets by the end of the day that map of walkeran was one big mass of yellow highlighter in other words we knew by then that this had hit the whole town and there's only one thing can do that that that's not food that's water from a public health perspective it was a disaster in the making Dr Mig knew that if eoli was in Walker's water every single one of its citizens was at risk you didn't have to be a wizard to understand that 5 to 10% of people that got sick would develop kidney failure so in a town of 4800 you know we started doing the math and we knew that we knew that in the next few days people would die almost certainly of this [Music] disease MC quig contacted the Pu the Public Utilities Commission it was their job to test the town's water supply on a weekly basis a review of their records showed no abnormalities over the last 6 months chlorine levels were normal and there had been no report of bacterial growth mcqu was surprised and suspicious water was the only logical answer the Pu who does the sampling and and sends them off for test says the water's okay so we had a debate about whether we should take our own water samples facing an outbreak of this magnitude the health unit had to be sure investigators collected water samples from 22 different sources throughout Walkerton MC quig was not hopeful we thought it's probably been a week and a half since this thing actually happened what are the chances of us finding the bug in the water we thought very little it was a long shot but they were desperate for answers it would take 24 hours to get lab results but before they had their answer the outbreak claimed its first victim a 66-year-old woman died of [Music] complications friends and neighbors grieved for the family but Panic was spreading the first death occurred that only heightens everyone's anxiety the parents the kids the doctors the nurses and and everyone Walkerton grief was not private as the media learned of the tragedy the outbreak became international news dozens of people were now infected and still the source of the disease was a mystery in the town of Walkerton only two things were certain they were at war with an invisible killer and the death toll would [Music] rise in Ontario Canada a little girl was suffering from severe stomach cramps she was diagnosed with a lethal bacteria eoli 0157 it was the beginning of a deadly epidemic with hospitals overwhelmed doctors were desperate Terror gripped the community until Health officials found the source of the epidemic the whole town was threatened they believed the town's water supply was to blame but public utility records showed it was safe Dr Murray mcqu suspected somebody was lying we simply didn't believe what we were being told by the Waterworks operators and we were in a position of saying yes we should issue a boiled water advisory even though we're being told by the very people attested that it's okay so it was a difficult thing to do radio time is 7:00 it was a risky move but Mig was willing to stake his career on it he issued a warning to the public through local radio stations brr gry ow health unit has issued a boal water advisory for all walkeron residents medical officer of Health Dr Murray mccake says close to 100 people have called the walkeron hospital complaining of diarrhea again the Bruce gy own South health unit is asking all Walker in residents to boil water before being used for drinking and cooking theu with the news their water could be fatal residents of Walkerton panicked area schools turned off their drinking fountains parents were terrified a swimming pool or even a puddle of water were potentially deadly as a public health investigator Bev m urged calm but preached caution the feeling in the community was of anger an awful lot of panic and certainly of fear the public health unit instructed Walkerton residents to shut off the water in their homes every faucet was a possible source of infection all water had to be boiled for drinking bathing and washing the dishes eoli takes 2 to 4 days to show symptoms residents like Bruce Davidson waited in fear hoping his family wasn't already infected you're searching at this point for some reason why it won't touch your family so absolute fear was gripping people because they knew that there was at this point an incubation period and am I sitting on a time bomb that's going to get me in three or 4 days as new spread all over Canada Walkerton became a ghost town the schools were closed restaurants and businesses shut their doors people didn't want to come to walkeran to eat or shop some walkeran citizens when they went to other towns were shunned um they uh they thought in some way that they were contaminated fite the hardship the community rallied together grocery store owners donated thousands of gallons of bottled water to Walker in [Music] residence on top of dealing with sick friends and relatives residents cope with the challenges of life without running water everything you can think of that involved water was an ordeal shaving in the morning boiling water on the stove to do that because you wouldn't want to use the tap water and Nick yourself and then put that into your system everyday tasks became more difficult and anxiety provoking you didn't dare put small children in the bathtub because you thought what if they get a sip of the water is the water okay don't want to take that chance for those who were already sick every hour was a struggle the infection was painful and there was no cure Allison Taylor was one of the first victims of the outbreak it had been 3 days since she was admitted into ICU and her condition was still deteriorating there was nothing Dr howlet could do it was probably the most stressful for the parents of the children who were sick because there wasn't a real quick end in sight and many people had several children that were unwell and to have the risk of one child being sick is bad enough but to have more than one that was very anxiety-provoking at Owens sound Hospital little Molly glass was one of the youngest patients struck down by eoli just four years of age she was especially vulnerable to the poisonous bacteria blood test revealed M's fragile kidneys were beginning to fail she show showed signs of hus hemolytic ureic syndrome the life-threatening complication was attacking her [Music] kidneys Molly needed dialysis she had to be transferred to a larger facility we go her doctor decided to airlifter to a children's hospital in London Ontario [Music] for a child this ill the 3-hour journey was risky but it was her only chance for survival [Music] dialysis was the only weapon doctors had to fight the hus and to keep her kidneys working but Molly's prognosis was not good the tiny girl was in a fight for her life okay her parents were in anguish as more young children became sick Dr Mig was in a desperate race to protect other families from suffering the same fate I called every parent that had a child under the age of five because those are the kids that are likely to die if they get hemolytic ureic syndrome or kidney failure from this he told parents to take their children to the hospital for blood tests every two days it must have been terrible to hear my voice on the phone saying that your child May develop kidney failure um I should tell you that every one of those parents was grateful for the call and they did not get angry they did not get terribly upset they were glad to have the information the community rallied around its children who were hit hardest by the outbreak by now the walkeran hospital was filled to overflowing every seat in the emergency room at different times was filled with people people slumped over in their chairs with severe abdominal cramping parents holding children you have never seen the look of fear and Terror on the pale face of a parent as they sit there with their child saying is this going to be minor or is this going to take the life of my child it was just just too horrible for parents and doctors alike the news just kept getting worse the stress for the doctors was equally felt by the nurses and the lab teexs and the pathologist and in public health everyone who was kind of involved U with the epidemic though the tragedy in Walkerton had captured the attention of the world there was still no proof the water was the source when are we going to get a straight answer on what's happening to our children in this town Colin perkle covered the story for the Toronto Star and arrived to find a community in shock in chaos confusion people were sick people were dying they were trying to get answers from their local politicians nobody was providing the the answers by day four of the outbreak over a hundred people were infected the most critical patients were airlifted to London Ontario Stephanie Martin was another severe case she joined a ward full of patients from Walkerton what's her name they were all in critical [Music] condition the 7-year-old kidneys were failing doctors rushed to prepper for dialysis on Tuesday the health unit received lab results on water samples they had taken 24 hours earlier of 22 samples two tested positive for eoli we were stunned I don't mean to be true dramatic but we were stunned there was complete silence in the room um it took us seconds to understand that we were not being told the truth about Walker and's water the Public Utilities Commission had failed to protect the town's water supply worse they had hidden their own negligence now dozens of children were at risk of paying for that mistake with their lives [Music] in May of 2000 Walkerton Ontario was a town Under Siege they were at war with a deadly outbreak hundreds of people were sick and some of them were dying lab results revealed that their homes and the town they lived in were contaminated by a deadly bacteria eoli 0157 was in Walker's water supply it was everywhere as a health official Dr Murray mcquigg knew what was coming and it scared him by the time our public health unit gets confirmation of a water test that's bad it's too late people have already consumed the water and we know that we are in a situation where we're really reacting to a problem that's already started it was like looking into a crystal ball and predicting a catastrophe eoli bacteria spreads like wildfire it threatened to consume the whole town MC quig was shocked to learn the Public Utilities Commission had died they endangered an entire town by failing to chlorinate the tap water they'd already had tests back showing that their water was contaminated and didn't tell us and that they'd had a chlorinator off of one of the three Wells for some time at that time we didn't know for how long on May 23rd 5 days into the epidemic Dr mcqu went public with his findings on Friday May the 19 18 of last week the Bruce Gren sound public health unit was notified we held the press conference on Tuesday to tell people that there was a disaster occurring in walkeron and and the kinds of precautions that we needed people to take it was critically important to get that information out as soon as we could to as many people as we could people all over the country were stunned by the news but the residents of Walkerton felt betrayed I was completely overwhelmed I mean we all know that third world countries have this happen all the time but I really felt that our water here was safe on Saturday when we saw a whole raft of people with bloody D something is an uous as drinking water was tearing their Town apart it was a tremendous mixture of shock anger fear of what the future would hold because the system that we put so much faith in nothing is more essential than the air you breathe and the water you drink you take it for granted the government sent in a team to take over the public utilities and to probe the extent of their deadly mistake and the investigation must be allowed to continue so the full scope of the problem can be identified and dealt with it would take time to fix weren's water problem how long they didn't know a black veil fell over the town as the eoli epidemic held residents in its deadly grip beautiful spring days where you usually would see the children running and playing and spraying each other with Garden holes and laughing and all kinds of activity that's normal was absolutely like a bomb had gone off there were no children on the street the children that were well enough to be sent away to stay with grandparents out of town were sent away some were in hospital some were struggling with the illness himself nurse nurse at an Ontario hospital Molly glass's condition went from bad to worse us as her body struggled against the bacteria's toxin her arteries [Music] collapsed Molly suffered multiple Strokes there was nothing doctors could do to save her life the outbreak claimed its second victim 4-year-old Molly glass an update on the Ki outbreak in walkeron we just learned a young hand girl has died from complications from the bacterial infection child had been in for residents it was frightening news Molly and her family had only been in Walkerton for a single day elderly most vulnerable that increased the fear even more because the idea that you didn't have to live here and consume the water for long periods of time that that what would seem like a minimal exposure to this water could be lethal and you turn to your own children and you look at them and you just want to hug them and you start running through your mind when was the last time my children had access to this [Music] water the sound of ambulances were a common and terrifying reminder [Music] nobody was safe from the outbreak Health officials worked Around the Clock trying to contain the epidemic people were scared we talked about the kinds of things that the public needed to be told in order to protect those that hadn't gotten sick already by washing their hands and chlorine after they went to the washroom and all those kinds of safeguards to try and ensure that more people didn't get sick the health unit educated doctors on the most recent treatments for a coli thanks we become the repository of new medical information if you will lots of Physicians don't know much about EOL 15787 we look up the latest treatments we give them the tests that they need to do okay right any coli epidemic of this size eyes had never been seen in North America close to a thousand people were now infected 5 to 10% of them would develop kidney failure we started to worry whether there be enough kidney dialysis machines in Ontario with the numbers that we thought would get sick as the outbreak grew more and more of Walkerton sick were Medevac to London Ontario so every resident of our community hears that helicopter come in you'd break out into a cold sweat because you thought who is it now it's coming to take someone away it was it was the equivalent of watching a hearse drive past your door every few hours the hospital in London Ontario was jammed they had a ward full of patients from Walkerton they were all in critical condition and on dialysis for some the dialysis came too late 5 days into the crisis the outbreak took its third victim time an 83-year-old grandmother before the epidemic ran its course how many more of their friends their neighbors and their children would die a deadly outbreak of eoli 0157 had ravaged a small town in Ontario Canada for health officials it was a public health nightmare three people had died over a thousand were infected the most critical patients were airlifted to a larger Hospital in a nearby City lab results had proven that Walker's tap water was contaminated by deadly ecoli bacteria the health unit issued an advisory to the public the drinking water was potentially [Music] fatal bottled water was brought in by the truckload citizens worked together to deal with the crisis as the media recorded that every move the news was going very quickly all across the province all across Canada all across the world for that matter about this outbreak downtown was just a complete throng of of media trucks lining the Main Street Satellite trucks from every Network you can imagine as the world watched Walkerton grief turned to rage we are a small town we have dealt with death we continually deal deal with people neighbors friends who are hurt who are sick and hopefully will not follow through with that tragedy so my question they demanded an explanation for how a thing like this could happen in their town the government launched a comprehensive water testing program in and around Walkerton they started with the town's water wells one of them well number five was located near a small farm nearby groundwater tested positive for eoli but this well had been operational for years why did the contamination suddenly occur investigators worked backwards looking at Mother's Day weekend 5 days before the first case was reported heavy rains had swept through the a area much of the town was flooded eoli bacteria in cure was swept from flooded pastures into the groundwater and then into the nearby well this would not have caused a problem had the water supply been properly chlorinated tragically the chlorinator on a single well was not working lack of Maintenance and incomplete testing allowed a deadly bacteria to flourish and enter the town's drinking water none of them at the Public Utilities Commission had been doing what they were supposed to be doing they hadn't been following the guidelines that were in place they hadn't been testing the water properly now it would take a massive cleanup effort to decontaminate the town's water supply but they had to make Walkerton safe again it was a huge undertaking Town water systems were flushed with chlorine to purge the bacteria all the pipes in each house had to be individually disinfected so they went through some 800 households super chlorinating the pipes uh waiting for that chlorine to sit for a day um testing that system afterwards the cleanup was crucial but highly disruptive many residents simply gave up and left town until they could be sure the water was safe in time at the hospitals in Walkerton and London Ontario the infection finally ran its course Jack Thomas and Allison Taylor were released from the hospital for Stephanie Martin recovery was slow but steady after weeks in the hospital she would soon go home many children who develop kidney problems will suffer lingering effects for the rest of their lives nearly half of Walkerton 4800 residents became ill as a result of the outbreak seven people lost their lives their suffering has become a lasting part of the town's history one woman I spoke to compared it to the second world war the feeling in the town and that struck me how devastating this was for this town that that it had evoked for her that same kind of emotion it was 7 months before Walkerton water was considered safe for public consumption so I'll come right to the point we're going to lift the boiled water advisory for Walker in today [Applause] [Music] today clean water and Walkerton is never taken for granted Bruce Davidson formed concerned citizens for Walkerton a group Committed to protecting the Region's fragile environment we want to change our Legacy from one of infamy to one of excellence and tell people that even though something terrible happens to you you can move ahead and you have to move ahead because if the deaths of those people from eoli are going to mean anything we have to continue to move ahead and set a good example for the rest of the world a fountain in Walkerton memorializes those who lost their lives in the epidemic it is also a monument to The Fearless doctors and health officials who join forces to stop a ruthless killer and end a biological catastrophe [Music] [Music]