North Carolina Cheerleader Killed by the Flu in Just 3 Days
Lacie Rian Fisher, an athletic 15-year-old girl, passed away suddenly on the afternoon of Dec. 30 from the flu.
Lacie, who was a cheerleader at Pisgah High, had to miss a basketball game that day due to her flu-like symptoms. Her father, Kieth Fisher, recalled Lacie being exposed to the flu over the holidays but thought she only had a bug.
He brought her to the pediatrician about 72 hours after Lacie showed her first symptoms of body ache and clammy skin. But when they arrived at the clinic, Lacie lost consciousness, according to Citizen-Times.
“She just kind of screamed out a couple times,” Fisher remembers. She crumpled to the ground and “just went limp in my arms.”
Lacie would never regain consciousness, the publication noted.
Lacie was born in Changsha, China and grew up in Canton, North Carolina, as written in her obituary. Along with being on the junior varsity cheer team at school, she was also a straight-A student who “was goal-oriented and refused to accept failure.”
Her father remembers her as a “big hugger.”
“She just wanted to love on you,” he said.
Lacie’s immediate cause of death, as listed in her official death certificate, was septic shock, with Influenza B as an underlying cause. Sepsis is a potentially “life-threatening condition caused by the body’s response to an infection,” according to Mayo Clinic.
If left untreated, septic shock, a severe form of sepsis, may lead to a “significant drop in blood pressure that can lead to respiratory or heart failure, stroke, failure of other organs, and death,” according to Healthline.
Lacie reportedly got the flu vaccine in previous years, but she held off on getting it in November due to a rash she had on her body.
“I wished I would have gotten it for her,” Fisher said.
Her parents are now large proponents of the flu shot and are urging others to take it in her honor.
Feature Image via Wells Funeral Home
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