LAS CRUCES – Melanie McCann knew her daughter was different, “from the minute she came out of my body.”
Savannah Lynn McCann was happy, smart and artistic, having already adopted a symbol of herself – “her famous flying heart,” her mom calls it, a heart with wings that symbolized the Desert Hills Elementary third-grader’s strong will when it came to living, and all life, no matter how small. At Disneyland, Savannah spent her time taking amazing photos – of flowers. And just before Christmas, the family spotted a miniature Pinscher, injured, on the freeway, remembered her father, Brent McCann. Savannah put her small, 8-year-old foot down, saying, “We have to keep her. We have to save her.”
But a week ago, something wounded the flying heart, dampened the spirit of the girl who would enthusiastically show off every product – even the lowliest brown paper plate – at her family’s business, High Desert Equipment Rental. Just days after finishing a family birthday video for an uncle, ending on Savannah throwing her hands out with an enthusiastic “Cha cha cha!” an upset stomach sent Savannah home from school the morning of Jan. 18. She stayed home the rest of the week with a light cough and an occasional fever, resting, per doctor’s orders.
It was about 10 minutes after her father got home from work Saturday that the third-grader suddenly said she was having trouble breathing.
“We called 911,” Brent McCann said Tuesday. “Her breathing got more and more shallow.”
Just 15 minutes after her first complaint, the little girl remembered by her mother as a “free spirit,” the “life of the party,” had died.
“She took her last breath as the EMTs walked in,” said her mother, Melanie McCann.
The little girl was taken to MountainView Regional Medical Center and given heavy doses of epinephrine, but the efforts failed to revive her. Doctors said an influenza mutation appeared to have suddenly attacked Savannah’s liver, kidneys and brain, her mother said.
The Office of the Medical Investigator confirmed Tuesday afternoon that Savannah McCann’s cause of death was influenza; additional tests are being run to confirm that H1N1 was, indeed, the sub-type. If confirmed, Savannah McCann would be the first child in Do-a Ana County to be killed by the avian-swine flu mutation.
“She had no other health issues, none, that’s how absolutely awful that virus is,” Melanie McCann said. The family’s doctors hadn’t recommended getting flu shots, she said, and even if she had gotten vaccinated, the strain of H1N1 she got might not have responded to it, Melanie McCann said: “There’s nothing we could have done.”
“The pediatrician in the hospital said they never would have said, from the warning signs (earlier that week), that they would have asked for her to come in,” Brent McCann said. “Ten minutes after I got home. It happened that fast.”
The family, including 5-and-a-half-year-old Tyler – Savannah’s best friend – and 2-and-a-half-year old-Brody, has been placed on preventative doses of Tamiflu, and their house is being thoroughly treated with ozone, to kill the H1N1 virus. But now, Savannah’s parents – who say they never let Savannah or Tyler, in kindergarten, be around other children when they had a potentially contagious illness – are wondering where else the virus has gone, and are frustrated at the possibilities.
“She got it somewhere,” Melanie McCann said. “I did my job, as a parent, trying to keep her from getting sick. We kept her home.”
“Somebody sent their kid in sick,” Brent McCann said. “Other teachers said they’ve had five or six (children) out of class at a time.”
Las Cruces Public Schools spokesman Mike Cook said the district had not yet received a final report on the cause of Savannah’s death, but that procedures were in place at schools to protect against possible further contamination. A letter was sent home with parents Tuesday offering grief services, Cook said.
Superintendent Stan Rounds said Tuesday they are in the process of deep cleaning Desert Hills Elementary.
Department of Health spokesman Chris Minnick said Tuesday morning his office was still testing results to be finalized from labs handling the death, and can’t yet confirm that Savannah’s death was due to H1N1. If so, it would be the first since a 3-year-old Otero County boy died from a complication from the illness in early February, 2010.
“H1N1 is, obviously, still out there,” Minnick said.
After visitation Friday, from 6-8 p.m. at Las Cruces First Assembly of God, 5606 Bataan Memorial West, services will follow Saturday at noon. There will be a balloon release.
“She touched so many people,” Brent McCann said.
“She amazed me on a daily basis,” added Melanie McCann, before pausing and reflecting on her first child’s too-short life. “She knew she was going to heaven.”
And she knows something else too about her child’s death, no matter what the final determination is: It was preventable.
“We don’t want it to happen to anyone else,” she said.
Ashley Meeks can be reached at (575) 541-5462.
Website: www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_17200046