TUCKER, Ga. -- The enterovirus D68 has now spread to at least 30 states. A family is Tucker believes it was one of the very first affected by this strain.
David Nash was a very sick little boy.
"He just looked like a fish out of water and he could not catch his breath," he father, Rodney Nash, explained.
The boy's parents noticed he just wasn't getting any better from a back to school cold.
"We noticed a little cough that would not go away. He had a slight fever. He just couldn't breathe," Nash said.
At 3 years old, David unknowingly became one of the first people in Georgia diagnosed at the beginning of the enterovirus D68 outbreak.
"When we first got there the hospital hadn't caught wind of it but they admitted that we are having a high incidence of children coming in with these exact symptoms," Nash said.
Those symptoms were a cough, a fever and shortness of breath.
"Knowing the symptoms parents can stay on top of it and know when enough is enough," Nash stressed.
David's parents sought treatment just in time. After three days of vaporized medicine, he started wheeling himself around the hospital on a tricycle. By the time the CDC announced the outbreak, Nash says David was back home.
"He is 100 percent now," he added.
His dad wants his son's story to make others more aware.
"I don't want people and parents to go to far and not recognize the signs and symptoms. It's something if they go too far, it may not have the same outcome that we had with our little boy," Nash said.
Enterovirus D68 | What parents should know
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Rodney Nash believes if he had waited just one more day to take David to the hospital it may not have been as good of an outcome.
