MCMINNVILLE, Ore. -  The wife of a 44-year-old Yamhill County man who died of the swine flu wants to warn people they can die from the H1N1 virus even if they’re healthy.

Tamela Hill said her husband David’s death had nothing to do with the fact he had diabetes or had a heart attack a year ago.

“It never compromised his heart,” she said about the flu. “It was his lungs, and he just had a checkup. He was doing great. I’m going with, even if you’re healthy, it can happen.”
 
She said her husband got off heart medication last month because his heart had become well again. She also said he was about to be taken off his medication for diabetes because he had gotten that under control with proper diet.

David Hill is Yamhill County’s first person to die from the H1N1 virus. Tamela said her husband didn’t believe he was in an at-risk group.

But she said two weeks ago David came down with a head cold then got a cough. A week and a half later he had a temperature of 104.

“By the time we heard it was swine flu, he was already in Portland on a ventilator,” Tamela said.

Yamhill County health officer Dr. Robert Moore said anyone with any kind of serious illness or ongoing medical issue is at risk of dying from H1N1.

“Because that would affect your ability to handle another significant infection like influenza,” he said.

In the end doctors put David into a medical coma.

“I got to tell him ‘I love him’ and ‘I’ll see you in a couple of days,’” Tamela said.

But David’s lungs stopped functioning and his organs started failing one by one.

“Twenty-nine years of friendship, and I would’ve loved to have had more,” Tamela said.

In Yamhill County, health officials have been focusing on vaccinating kids against H1N1 and are still weeks away from vaccinating those with underlying illnesses.