Church botulism survivor still feels effects of illness

LANCASTER – A couple days after eating at an April 19 Cross Pointe Freewill Baptist Church potluck luncheon, Debbie Wright started to feel strange.

“I was OK until Tuesday morning when I got up to go to work,” the Pleasantville Elementary School music teacher said. “I couldn’t focus out of this (left) eye. I had done a lot of work prior to that, the day before, mowing, and I thought that I did something. I went to work anyway, but I didn’t feel right. I didn’t know what it was. In fact, I told a couple people, ‘If I just happen to fall down, pick me back up and call my sister.’ You didn’t know what was going on.”

Wright was one of several church members stricken with botulism, which the Ohio Department of Health said is a rare but serious paralytic illness caused by a nerve toxin produced by certain kinds of bacteria. State health officials said the Cross Pointe botulism case was likely caused by home-canned potatoes in potato salad at the luncheon.

One person died and Pastor Bill Pitts said one victim will remain hospitalized for the next few weeks with complications from pneumonia. That victim is the only one still hospitalized. Pitts said 50 people were examined for botulism, with 30 showing the effects of it. There were 21 people hospitalized.

“You could just feel your body deteriorate, but I didn’t know what was going on,” Wright said of first being stricken. “Then I had a message on my answering machine from Pastor Bill’s wife that said if you experience this, this, this or this, get to the emergency room.”

After calling her sister, who is a nurse, Wright went to the Fairfield Medical Center emergency room. By then, her vision was blurred and she was slurring her speech. It was there she learned that botulism was suspected.

Wright was transferred to Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus after about 45 minutes.

“My breathing wasn’t too bad then,” she said.

But she could not see, and her speech worsened. Botulism eventually affected Wright’s breathing.

“I didn’t know what was going on,” Wright said. “I had no idea. As an educator, and I’m embarrassed to say this, I had no idea what botulism was. I did not know what I was in for.”

She spent five days at Riverside before being sent home. Wright said she’s much better now but not totally recovered.

“You can hear me gasp for breath sometimes,” she said. “I still have problems with my breathing and my swallowing. And sometimes my brain, all the neurons don’t fire exactly right. But I’m 100 percent better. I thank the good Lord that he helped me to get better. It was a very scary thing, but I am on the other side of it.”

She said others were affected in their legs, while Wright was affected from the chest up.

“That’s what hits me the most because I’m a singer by trade,” she said. “I teach music. I mean, I eat, drink and sleep music. But I did speech therapy, and if they told me to do 10 exercises, I did 20. I really rehabbed myself from when they said you could start it. So I think that’s why it’s gotten me to where I am today.”

Wright is a member of the church gospel trio, Cross Pointe, which will close out the city’s downtown summer bandstand concert at 7 p.m. Friday. She said the show will be a test for her.

“Because we’re doing all of our songs, and some of them we haven’t done in public since the beginning of April,” she said. “Because I haven’t been able to sing them. But I’m just praying for a miracle that God will help that voice get through, and I think the city of Lancaster needs to see somebody that’s been through it and is on the other side. Not totally on the other side, but I will get there.”

Wright went back to her teaching job in May for the last two weeks of the school year and will return this year. She said she has no animosity toward the person who made the potato salad. Pitts said no one at the church does either.

“None, none,” he said. “I can say that emphatically. Everyone said it doesn’t even matter. Because it was an accident. It was something that happened, that no one could have foreseen. So no. Not at all.”

jbarron@lancastereaglegazette.com

740-681-4340

Twitter: @JeffDBarron

If you go

•What: Cross Pointe Trio gospel concert for the final Friday Night Bandstand show of the year.

•When: 7 p.m. Friday

•Where: Bandstand at the corner of Main and Broad streets in Lancaster.