U.S.

'I Was Near Death'

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 26, 2001 / 4:54 AM EDT / CBS

Ernesto Blanco could feel his life slip away as he lay on a hospital bed with inhalation anthrax, a deadly form of the disease that had killed a co-worker.

"I was near death. I felt physically, and in my soul, that I was leaving this world," Blanco recalled Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press at his Florida home.

Blanco, a mailroom worker at supermarket tabloid publisher American Media Inc., was hospitalized nearly three weeks and is the first to survive the inhaled form of the disease. The 73-year-old grandfather was released Tuesday from Cedars Medical Center in Miami.

"Considering the circumstances, I feel good," Blanco said between intermittent bouts of coughing and calls from well-wishers. "Of course, I have my problems. I feel tired still and I've lost 16 pounds in about 14 days."

As Blanco visited doctors Thursday, more environmental tests were being taken at AMI's Boca Raton headquarters, which has been shuttered for more than two weeks.

Blanco's doctors told him he will eventually recover fully, but only after extended treatment. He must keep taking antibiotics and resting.

"Who wouldn't be happy to be home after the odyssey that I went through?" Blanco asked, laughing as his wife, Elda, served him up a shot of Cuban coffee. "I had many difficult, difficult days in the hospital, but I'm here."

Blanco's hospital stay saw his condition fluctuate, from sitting in his bed chatting with family members to grasping onto life with tubes draining fluid and blood from his lungs.

"I never told my wife, but in a certain moment, I felt that I was going, and that I was helpless," Blanco said. "How about that?"

When lucid, Blanco would watch television, and he admits learning that he had full-blown anthrax from the TV news. He also caught a couple of baseball playoff games.

Doctors initially believed Blanco's symptoms were from pneumonia. A test later showed he had been exposed to anthrax, but he wasn't diagnosed with the disease until two weeks after entering the hospital Oct. 1.

"I never asked, `Why me?" Blanco said. "Someone else gets hit by lightning because they're standing under a tree. It hit me because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Anthrax has killed three people in the United States this month, an outbreak authorities suspect is linked to mail. The first victim was one of Blanco's co-workers, photo editor Robert Stevens, 63, who died Oct. 5. Two Washington postal workers died this week.

"In my case, there is no need for fear, for panic, for alarm," said Blanco, a Cuban exile and American citizen. "When you become panicked, you complete the game for the enemy. That's what they want."

Doctors doubt the bacteria will come back, and even if it does, Blanco's immune system should now be able to handle it. They're glad, but puzzled, at Blanco having managed to recover at what was a late stage in the disease.

"We are delighted that he is recovering," said Dr. David Flemin, deputy director of the CDC. "It's very good news. This means we need to re-evaluate what we know about inhaled anthrax."

Perhaps newer antibiotics are more effective than doctors assumed, Fleming said, or maybe Blanco simply had a less severe case of the disease.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, another CDC official, noted that three others with confirmed cases of inhaled anthrax are stable or improving. Like Blanco, all were treated with combinations of antibiotics.

"That may be one clue as to why they may be doing better than we would generally expect," she said.

New CDC guidelines issued Thursday recommend combination antibiotics for all victims of inhaled anthrax.