This is supposed to be Jamie-leigh's legacy page.  Instead, I have opted to place some of the newspaper articles that ran at the time of her death concerning viral meningitis. These articles are out of our local papers.




Oct. 17--Days before her graduation from Vidor High School, Jamie Leigh Britt collapsed in the school library. The 18-year-old student was rushed by ambulance to Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital where she died of viral meningitis.

Having a defibrillator on campus probably would not have saved Britt's life, said Vidor Independent School District Police Chief Ray Moseley. But her unexpected death did expose a weakness in the school's emergency response.

As a result, the Vidor district is the first in Southeast Texas to have automated external defibrillators at all of its campuses.

The district purchased 10 of the briefcase-size units this summer for $1,500 to $1,700 each. School nurses now are conducting training sessions to teach all staff how to use the machines.

"With the number of students and athletes going down in over the past year, it was time," Moseley said.

Over the last month, four students have died in the Houston area after suddenly collapsing during or after school athletic practice. It is unclear if having a defibrillator on hand would have saved the students, but media coverage has brought attention to the issue.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who is up for re-election in November, has announced an initiative to put defibrillators in all Texas public schools. His office estimates the cost would be $16 million.

Now, 600 of the 1,300 high schools in the University Interscholastic League have defibrillators. The Beaumont Independent School District is considering buying the units, said spokesperson Jolene Ortego.

Alicia Boaze, director of Pediatric Care at Memorial Hermann Baptist Beaumont Hospital, said the chance of defibrillators actually saving a student's life is low.

"But as a parent, as a nurse, I would want it in my child's school," she said.

Boaze explained the AEDs only work when a person has a lethal arrhythmia, which is when the heart is beating in a way that does not effectively move the blood through the body. When a person attaches the patches of an AED to a victim, the machine registers the heartbeat and determines whether a shock should be applied. The electric current does not restart the heart, but interrupts the electric signals the body sends to the heart. The heart can hopefully reset itself to a non-lethal beat.

Boaze said the heart often is beating too fast and the flat line beep made famous by television shows, where a person's heart stops completely, is not what an AED is for.

"I feel a lot safer with them," Moseley said. "It gives you a better chance of saving someone's life."

Copyright (c) 2006, The Beaumont Enterprise, Texas

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Autopsy: Vidor teen dies of viral meningitis
The Enterprise
06/28/2006
Updated 07/01/2006 12:06:08 AM CDT

A Vidor High School senior who collapsed in the campus library died of viral meningitis, according to a full autopsy report released Tuesday.

Jamie Leigh Britt, 18, a teenager her friends called a movie star for her iconic sunglasses, later died in Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital May 22. 

It is not a common cause of death. Most people who have viral meningitis don't end up seriously ill. It is usually a more mild form of meningitis," said Chris Turley, University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston vice chair for clinical services and associate professor of pediatrics. "Usually the ones we are most concerned about (have) bacterial meningitis."

Symptoms of viral meningitis typically last about seven to 10 days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site.

Turley said anyone who might have contracted the viral strain already would have been sick.

"And they would be well by now. After a few days, your body fights it off," Turley said.

The Vidor Independent School District is scheduled to make an official announcement today, spokeswoman Sally Kirkpatrick said. 

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Published: May 22, 2006 11:22 pm
Tommy Mann Jr.
The Orange Leader
 
Vidor senior dies
A senior at Vidor High School collapsed as she entered the school’s library about 3 p.m. Monday, and was transported to a Beaumont hospital where she reportedly died a short time later.

Jamie Leigh Britt, 18, was pronounced dead at Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital by Jefferson County Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace Ken Dollinger.

Although her cause of death is still unknown, Dollinger ordered an autopsy be performed on Britt, which will be handled by Dr. Tommy Brown.

Britt had a personal page on her MySpace Web site where she communicated with friends about life, love and music.

A short autobiographical blurb on her Web page offered some insight. The information portrayed Britt as a teenager who enjoyed her friends and was preparing for the next phase of her life.

She talked about hanging out with her friends Jimmy, Stephanie, Rachel, Chanel, Chelsie and Trish, and eating lunch with them everyday; she also mentioned that she liked shopping.

Her bio said she was preparing to attend college full-time and see where that leads her.

Britt posted a message Friday on her friend Chanel’s MySpace page, which suggested Britt had not been feeling well recently.

“Just wanted to tell you thank you for calling and checking up on me,” Britt stated in her message to Chanel. “That was so sweet. Seriously, it made me cry. I've had doctors appointments out the WhaZooo! And they still don't know what’s wrong with me. If it's OK, me and Todd might stop by for a little while on Saturday ’cause, after that spinal tap, I'm not supposed to do anything.”

A close friend, identified as Heather Nicole on the Web site, had just spoken with Britt earlier Monday at school and sent the following message.

“I am just devastated,” Heather said. “I talked to her this morning when they (the school) were trying to tell her she couldn't walk across the stage for graduation because of a credit she didn't have, but she was not going to give up without a fight.”

Heather described Britt as “an unbelievably amazing person,” who was able to make her friends laugh, and who was a good listener.

Britt spoke of constant fever and “explosive” headaches in a message last Friday evening on another friend’s personal page on www.myspace.com

“She was her own person,” Heather said. “She didn’t care what people thought of her. She was one of the most beautiful girls that I had ever met.”

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May death of Vidor senior due to viral meningitis
Tommy Mann Jr.
The Orange Leader

Vidor Independent School District officials on Wednesday released autopsy results for Jamie Leigh Britt, a senior student who collapsed May 22 inside the library at Vidor High School. Britt was pronounced dead a short time later.

Autopsy results indicated that Britt died from advanced stages of viral meningitis.

According to the official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Website, there are between 25,000 and 50,000 hospitalizations due to viral meningitis each year in the U.S.

Meningitis is an illness in which there is inflammation of the tissues that cover the brain and spinal cord. Viral or "aseptic" meningitis, which is the most common type, is caused by an infection with one of several types of viruses.

Common symptoms of meningitis are fever, severe headache, stiff neck, bright lights hurting the eyes, drowsiness or confusion, and nausea and vomiting, but symptoms may not be the same for all people.

The CDC website also states that the disease can be spread through direct contact with respiratory secretions of an infected person, such as saliva or nasal mucus.

This can happens by shaking hands with an infected person or touching something they have handled, and then rubbing your own nose or mouth. 

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Viral meningitis is considered to be serious but rarely fatal in people with normal immune systems.

The disease is usually diagnosed by laboratory tests of spinal fluid obtained with a spinal tap.

Britt reported she had underwent a spinal tap procedure days before her death, according to a statement she had posted on a close friend’s profile page on the Web site My Space.com.

Britt was awarded her diploma posthumously in June during graduation ceremonies for VHS seniors. The diploma was accepted on her behalf by her older sister.

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