Forensic Files - Season 2, Episode 7 - Fatal Fungus - (In HD) | Forensic Files

[Music] 911. I think the baby's choked. Be right there. >> Emergency squad needed a baby that's
choking 804 High Street. >> In 1994, an infant was rushed to a hospital emergency room with a serious breathing
problem. The baby's lungs were bleeding, a life-threatening condition which is extremely rare.
>> Within months, there were over 30 cases in Cleveland, just like it, a rate 1,000
times higher than anywhere else in the world. >> Not all of the infants survived.
>> Doctors had never seen anything like it and frantically searched for the cause.
[Music] On a chilly November evening, Nema Williams heated some baby formula. for
her 6-w week old son, Brian. But during that feeding, something went terribly wrong.
>> I heard him regurgitate, so I figured it was milk. But instead, when I picked him
up, instead of seeing white milk, you know, I'm seeing bright red blood. >> Her baby was rushed to Rainbow Babies
and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, where doctors struggled to save little Brian's life.
X-rays revealed that Brian's lungs were filling up with blood. Unable to breathe
on his own, he was taken to intensive care and placed on a ventilator. >> The suctions are still pretty bloody.
>> I'm wondering it, but I'm not thinking it. You know, my baby's going to be okay. We going to get through this. So,
but it's still in the back of your mind. You know, you know, he could die. Is this the last I'm going to see you,
Brian? Is this my last look at him? Brian was quite sick. He had bled a lot. He had dropped his hematocrit almost in
half and required an acute blood transfusion on top of having to be supported with a ventilator.
>> Brian Mitchell's condition was diagnosed as idiopathic pulmonary hemocerosis which means unexplained bleeding in the
lungs. Lung bleeding is usually caused by a heart problem, an infection, or child abuse. But in Brian's case,
doctors eliminated these as possible causes. The hospital's medical records revealed two other babies had been
treated for unexplained lung bleeding, and one of those babies died. The incidence of lung bleeding in
infants was 1,000 times higher in Cleveland than anywhere else in the world. Brian Mitchell was fortunate.
After 2 weeks of improvement, he was released from the hospital. His doctors suspected that his lung bleeding was
caused by an allergic reaction to his baby formula, and they recommended his mother change the type she was using.
But one week later, Brian Mitchell was back in the hospital with more lung bleeding.
>> I was just to the point, what's wrong with him? He starts bleeding. We bring him to the hospital. You leave him in
the hospital for 3 days, but you can't tell us why he's here. You can't tell us what's wrong with him. Why does he keep
bleeding? I don't know. >> Dr. Dearbornne discovered that Brian Mitchell and the other sick babies all
lived within a sixmile radius of the hospital on Cleveland's east side. >> It was probably an environmental
component. It said not necessarily that it was in their homes, but something in that in that part of the community was
um was problematic. >> But there was a complication. Brian Mitchell had a twin sister, Briana, who
lived in the same house, ate the same food, and slept in the same room as Brian,
and even shared the same crib. If Dr. Dearborn was right, and the cause was environmental, why did little Brian get
sick while his twin sister was perfectly healthy? And there was another problem. Only
infants were getting sick. None of the older children or adults in the same neighborhood or even in the same homes
were affected. Dr. Dearbornne knew he needed help and called in the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
>> The fear is we were going to continue to have more uh more of these babies and
that we wouldn't get them too late to save them. Something mysterious was happening in
Cleveland, causing the lungs of infants to bleed for no apparent reason. It was an outbreak unlike any other
before in medical history. And it was happening, ironically, within a six-mile radius of a children's
hospital. The Centers for Disease Control assigned Dr. Ruth Zel to lead the investigation
in Cleveland. Her job was to find out what caused the death of one infant and the life-threatening illness of seven
others. >> The job of a medical detective is an awful lot like the job of a criminal
detective. That is, we're looking to try to track down the culprit of a specific
unknown disease. And if we can track down that culprit, we can prevent him from attacking again.
>> Dr. Petsel reviewed all of the medical records of the infants with pulmonary hemoceterosis.
One thing caught her eye. Many of the infants improved in the hospital, but started bleeding again after they
returned home. >> Use soaps and things like that to clean it up. >> The families of the sick infants were
interviewed using a 230 item questionnaire to see if they differed in any way from the families of healthy
children. All of the homes were tested to see if the pesticides used were the type
approved for residential use and air samples from the homes were also collected.
Within days of the investigation, two more babies with pulmonary hemocerosis were rushed to the hospital
from the same neighborhood. The total number of cases was now 10. >> Nine of those 10 were male and all of
them were African-American. So this made us start thinking as to whether we were dealing with something
related to the genetics of race, uh whether we were dealing with uh something that was particularly
susceptible in males. Um, so it those were in the background of of our considerations of still primarily
something in the environment was probably causing this. But if the cause was environmental, why was Brian
Mitchell sick while his twin sister Briana was healthy. Both slept in the same room, in the same crib, ate the
same food, and breathed the same air. Here an infant who had no outward signs of bleeding had had ongoing low-grade
bleeding for several weeks. And yet at any time she could have had a stress and she would have bled to death.
So this said to us not only frightening for her but frightening for the community. How many infants like Briana
were out in the community that were showing no real significant problems? How deep was this iceberg?
>> As the mystery intensified, so did the fear among parents in Cleveland's east side neighborhoods. The
level of pesticides in the sick baby's homes were all within normal range. And there was no difference in air samples
collected from the homes of the sick children than those collected from the homes of the healthy infants.
>> We want to prevent another death. We want to prevent another case. and and we
didn't know where to reach out to next. So, uh I think all the public health authorities involved, state, federal,
local, were really uh trying to get together in the think tank and and figure out some answers because we
didn't have any. >> But the data gathered from the questionnaires began to reveal some
important information. Seven of the 10 sick children lived in homes with cigarette smokers. All of the
sick babies had been bottlefed. None had been breastfed. And all of the sick babies lived in homes that had recent
water damage. Was it possible that smoking, baby, or something in the water was causing the deadly outbreak of the
bleeding lungs in infants? Or was it something else? Dr. Dr. Ruth Zel spent weeks trying to
figure out what was causing the mysterious lung bleeding among infants in Cleveland. There had been 10 cases
reported so far with one death and Zel was afraid there would be more. >> I really can't.
>> During the investigation, Dr. Zel met with a friend for dinner. She was a physician and a fellow medical detective
from Brazil. She mentioned a lecture she once attended and couldn't recall all of
the details but said the lecture described how micotoxins caused the serious illness of some Brazilian
children. After dinner, Dr. Zel rushed to the library to read all she could about micotoxins.
When she cross-referenced the words micotoxin with the word hemorrhage, the computer led to an article about a mold
called stakibbatras atra. The article described how stakibbatras atra found in some grain in Europe over 40 years
earlier caused livestock to bleed internally and die. Stacky botras is a dark green almost black slimy mold. It
often grows on cellulosebased items like straw and paper after coming into contact with water.
>> I began to wonder if micotoxins could make animals sick when they ate grain that was moldy. Could it be possible
that micotoxins could make babies sick if they breathed them in? To test her theory, Zel contacted Dr. Bill Sorenson.
He's a micologist who had done some research on the stackibbotric mold. Sorenson knew that the only possible way
that stakibbot could get into a baby's lungs was by the spores, the tiny, almost invisible seedlike structures
which are produced in the mold. Once the mold dries, the spores become light and
powdery and can flake away, traveling great distances through the air. >> And so therefore, it would be possible
if the spores are present in large enough numbers in the homes and released into the air that they could be inhaled
and produce disease symptoms. >> There were 400 different types of spores found in the homes of the sick babies.
The spores were placed on culture plates and left to grow for 10 days. When Sorenson analyzed the culture plates, he
noticed that many contained a dark green, almost black mold. Under a microscope, Sorenson noticed that the
samples from the Cleveland homes were structurally similar to the mold which killed the livestock in Europe. It was
in fact stakibbatras atra. Investigators now knew that spores from stakibbatras atra were in the air of the sick baby's
homes. But they needed to know whether the stakibbatra spores in Cleveland contained the same toxins as those which
killed the livestock in Europe. To find out, scientists grew the spores found in
the Cleveland homes in a mixture of rice. Stackibbot grows well in rice because of the moisture in the grains.
The mold was then ground and mixed with a series of solvents to extract the chemicals contained in the spores using
what is called high-performance liquid chromatography. The physical characteristics of the spore chemicals
were analyzed and scientists discovered that the Cleveland spores were identical
to the highly toxic micotoxins that killed the livestock in Eastern Europe. They were a special class of micotoxins
called triccoenes. >> The tririccoin micotoxins are among the most potent protein synthesis inhibitors
known. By that I mean they disrupt the ability of cells to make proteins and without that ability a cell will die.
>> When scientists searched the homes of the sick children they found the source
of the stackibbatra spores in mold found growing in the basement. The mold was found in all but one of the sick babies
homes. But stackibbot was also found in half the homes tested where healthy children lived. If it was stacky that
caused the death of one Cleveland infant and the serious illness of nine others,
why didn't it affect all of the infants who lived in homes where it was found? Spores from the stackibbatric atra mold
were found in all but one of the sick infants homes but were also found in half of the homes of healthy children
living in the same neighborhood. Scientists wanted to know why some children developed lung bleeding while
others did not. They soon discovered that the number of airborne spores in the sick babies's homes were far higher
than in the homes of healthy children. In effect, the homes of sick babies contained more spores and more poison.
>> Stacotus is generally not considered one of the major components in indoor air,
major fungal components in indoor air. In fact, it's often not observed at all. In a study in Canada just a few years
ago, they examined a few hundred houses. I don't remember the exact number, but they saw something like three colonies
in all of these houses combined. We observed levels as high as 600 colony former units per cubic meter of air in
some of the Cleveland homes. >> Researchers found the source of the stackibbotra spores in the basement
growing on walls, on boxes, and even on the insulation behind the walls. For stackibbot to develop, two things are
necessary. a cellulose product and water. Researchers discovered that some heavy rainstorms caused the sewer system
in the geographic cluster of case homes to overflow which produced flooding in many of the basements. In other homes,
the residents said they had some leaking pipes. The water was not immediately cleaned up and soaked through the
drywall and the insulation inside the walls, creating the perfect medium for stacky botras to grow in the warm,
moist, dark environment. But if the stackibbot was in the basement of these homes, how did the children come into
contact with the spores since none of the sick children had been in the basement? Researchers discovered that
when the mold dried, the spores flaked away and became airborne. The furnaces of these homes all drew air from the
basement instead of the upper floors. The spores were sucked into the furnace, traveled through the duct work, and made
their way into every room of the homes. Tragically, they were blown into the rooms where they could do the most
damage, into the infant's bedrooms where the babies spent most of their time sleeping. Once inside the infant's
lungs, the spores released the miccotoxins called triccoenes, which prevented the infant cells from
making the protein needed to hold their tiny vessels together. With the vessels now weak and fragile, an external
trigger may have caused the tiny vessels to rupture and bleed. Since most of the
sick babies lived in homes with cigarette smoking, this may have been one of the triggers. And none of the
sick babies had been breastfed, leading researchers to suspect that breast milk offered some sort of immunity.
Older children and adults were not affected by the stackibbot spores because their lungs were better
developed. And once researchers found how the stackibbot spores traveled from the basement to the children's rooms,
they discovered why little Brian Mitchell was so much sicker than his twin sister Briana. Although the two
slept in the same crib, Brian slept closer to the heating vent where he probably inhaled more spores than his
twin sister. By the time the investigation was over, there were over 30 cases of pulmonary
hemocrosis in Cleveland and four young infants died. Health officials urged parents to remove
all visible mold with bleach and water and to clean up water damage immediately to prevent the mold from developing.
One year after this investigation, the coroner in Cleveland reopened the files of 117 babies who died from what had
been listed as sudden infant death syndrome. lung tissue samples from their autopsies were re-examined in light of
what doctors now knew about Stakibbatraatra. In six of those samples, the lung samples turned blue, an indication that
the babies had bleeding in their lungs prior to their death. Officials believe that Stakiotraat may have played a role
in those six deaths. Yolanda Po is the mother of one of those six babies. Knowing the true cause of
her daughter's death helps bring some closure to her family's tragedy. >> I don't think that you could get any
worse than this outside of literally going to hell alive. There's there's nothing worse than this. It's not
because you'll never get over. This is something you will never ever get over and you'll always wonder what could I
have done? No matter how many times you hear, there was nothing you could have done.
>> I feel remorse. I feel I feel I feel their pain because I was standing there at one time, you know, wondering if my
son's going to die. >> Nemo Williams is thankful that her two children, Brian and Briana, both
survived their encounter with Stakiatra Satra. When I see a little baby's face who is doing well,
I think way beyond myself and thank the help that has come to all of us in trying to sort this out
because we didn't do it alone. >> Something simple but so deadly. You know, you don't you I mean, mother
nature has a bunch of stuff out there that we don't know about yet and this was one of them.
[Music] [Music] Hey. [Music]

An infant was rushed to the emergency room with serious breathing problems. Within months, there were more than 30 cases. Doctors searched frantically for the cause and a cure.

Brief Summary

Cleveland infants suffered from a mysterious lung bleeding outbreak linked to toxic mold exposure.

Key points

Mysterious Illness in Cleveland. An outbreak of unexplained lung bleeding in infants raises alarms among doctors and parents.
Discovery of Toxic Mold. Investigators find a toxic mold linked to the lung bleeding cases in infants.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Something simple but so deadly.

Nema Williams on the unexpected dangers of the environment.

20:57WatchSep 23, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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