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Boy Nearly Killed Because Of Bad Mosquito Bite

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Jun 5, 2009 4:21 pm US/Central

Boy Nearly Killed Because Of Bad Mosquito Bite

KELLOGG, Minn. (CBS) ―

Click to enlarge 1 of 1: His parents believe 8-year-old Tagen Miller caught Lacrosse encephalitis from getting bit by a Japanese rock pool mosquito.
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Boy Nearly Killed Because Of Bad Mosquito Bite

When your kids get mosquito bites they might whine about an itchy bump. But the mosquito bite that 8-year-old Tagen Miller got last year made him so sick he had to relearn to read, write and talk, CBS station WFOR-TV reported.

The 8-year-old's mother thinks a new bug called the Japanese rock pool mosquito could be to blame.

The bug bit Miller on the face. About a week later, he got really sick.

"I remember picking him up from school on Friday and he just tucked his head in the seat as tight as he could because it hurt," recalled Kay Miller, Tagen's mother.

"It started with a sore throat and the sore throat kind of went to an earache and headache," she said.

Then he took a turn for the worse.

"He couldn't eat, he couldn't talk, the first time we stood him up he wasn't aware of the left side of his body," said his mother.

As Miller slipped into a coma-like state, doctors discovered he'd caught Lacrosse encephalitis. There is no cure for the virus; He just had to wait it out.

"It was really hard see, because he was so healthy. He just steadily declined to the point where he wasn't responding to us," said Kay.

The Japanese rock mosquito first came to Minnesota a few years ago. But health investigators say it's spreading.

This kind of mosquito is mean, WCCO-TV reported. It's more aggressive and tends to bite during the day.

"They did find a few larvae of a mosquito which they thought was a tree hole which they further tested and found out it was the Japanese mosquito," said Tom Miller, Tagen's father.

The Minnesota Department of Health said privacy laws kept it from saying if investigators did that testing on the Miller's farm. A spokesman said there are no known cases of Minnesotans getting sick from the Japanese rock pool mosquito.