Skip to content

Orillia man on road to recovery after battle with legionnaires' disease

Murray Smith was discovered by friends, lying on a concrete floor of his shop after being unconscious for two days; 'I was delirious and confused'
Murray Smith and hydroplane
Murray Smith is getting his life back to normal after spending two weeks in hospital with legionnaire’s disease. Submitted photo

Murray Smith has a new lease on life.

After falling victim to legionnaire’s disease and nearly dying, the Orillia man said he looks at things a little differently nowadays.

“I’m trying to be a little more friendly and appreciate things a little bit more,” said Smith, one of nine area residents afflicted by the disease and what the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU) has termed a "cluster outbreak."

Smith, a retiree who is in his sixties, said he believes he fell into unconsciousness for nearly two days, lying on the concrete floor of the Barrie Road shop where he’s restoring his beloved Miss Vernors Unlimited hydroplane.

“My friends looked in through my back window and then called the police,” Smith said.

From there, he was rushed by ambulance to Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital, where he stayed for two weeks.

“The first week it was a week of antibiotics since my kidneys had shut down and my other organs were also starting to shut down,” Smith said, noting the second week was spent in rehabilitation, regaining his strength and learning how to walk again.

But the signs were there, according to Smith, before he fell in and out of concsiousness. While he was recovering, friends told him he was acting like a combative drunk due to the disease’s toll on his mental stability.

“I was delirious and confused,” he said, noting health officials haven’t been able to find any link between himself and the seven others caught in the outbreak’s original cluster (a ninth case was revealed later).

“The problem is your mental state. You’re defensive and not acting like yourself. You need supportive friends who are able to recognize the signs," Smith said.

The potentially fatal disease is a type of pneumonia caused by legionella bacteria. One usually gets it by breathing in mist from water that contains the bacteria.

For people over the age of 50, for those who smoke and for those who have pre-existing conditions, that inhalation can lead to pneumonia and to legionnaires’ disease. Most healthy people would not be expected to get the disease.

While health officials haven’t been able to pinpoint the exact cause of Smith’s contracting the debilitating illness, he suspects there are two possible reasons: One being an older water heater found in his shop and the other involving recent maintenance work on his hydroplane racer.

On Sept. 21, he hired someone to hot water/steam clean/pressure wash the inside of his boat’s hull prior to storage.

“This took 3-1/2 hours,” he recalled. “During that time, I manned the vacuum sucking out all the old oil, varnish and crap he was dislodging. My head and torso was soaked from the spray drifting from the pressure-washer gun.”

Smith said he started feeling ill on Sept. 26, which fits with the disease’s two to 10 day incubation period.

But through it all, Smith said he was extremely impressed with the care he received while recovering.

“The care I received at Soldiers’ was exemplary and the staff were all caring, genuinely concerned for my well-being and extremely professional,” he said.

Dr. Charles Gardner, the medical officer of health for the SMDHU, told OrilliaMatters last week the source of the outbreak remains elusive.

Health officials believe the source is likely a cooling tower in an air-conditioning system within a large building - likely in the downtown core. That suspicion is based on interviews with those who have contracted the disease and tracking their movements.

“We’ve investigated some cooling towers in buildings in the downtown core of Orillia,” said Gardner. “We’ve sent samples for testing to determine whether or not they would be carrying legionella. 

What would be completely definitive is if we had a genetic match between legionella grown in those samples and legionella grown in samples taken from patients themselves,” Gardner explained. “As of yet, we do not” have a definitive answer.

Despite that, officials have worked with the operators of those towers “to ensure their towers are clean and safe and sanitized so they can’t spread legionella in the future.”

He said that process involves changing the water within the towers and using an antiseptic such as chlorine and/or elevating the temperature of the water “to kill the organisms that might be in the tower.”

Now that that’s been completed, they will monitor those towers and will expand their search of water towers “further afield.”

“If we can get a definitive answer, we can stop,” said Gardner. “If we don’t, we keep going, at least for the time being.”

He said that process could last up to a month and conceded the source may never be known.

More information and updates about the local cluster can be found at the health unit’s dedicated page or by calling Health Connection at 705-721-7520 or 1-877-721-7520, weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. 

(With files from Dave Dawson)


Comments

Verified reader

If you would like to apply to become a verified commenter, please fill out this form.




Andrew Philips

About the Author: Andrew Philips

Editor Andrew Philips is a multiple award-winning journalist whose writing has appeared in some of the country’s most respected news outlets. Originally from Midland, Philips returned to the area from Québec City a decade ago.
Read more