Physician's Assistant Believes She Contracted Hantavirus At Yosemite

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - Yosemite National Park officials have warned 1,700 people who stayed there this summer that they may have been exposed to a deadly rodent-borne disease.

The disease can be carried in the urine, saliva and feces of rodents. Federal health officials say it can take up to six weeks for symptoms to develop, but one local woman says she started feeling sick right after her visit.

According to the state Department of Public Health, there have been 61 reported cases of hantavirus in California since 1993, when it first surfaced in the United States, but CBS13 spoke to a woman who believes she is the 62nd case.

"I've never been so sick in my entire life," Nicole Lapeyrade said.

Nicole thought she had a really bad flu, maybe even pneumonia.

"I didn't get out of bed for four days," she said. "I didn't shower for days."

But after hearing about the latest cases of the hantavirus coming out of Yosemite, she now believes she contracted it too.

"I went to Yosemite over the July 4th week," she said.

And Nicole stayed in Curry Village, the same place as the four people with confirmed cases of the virus.

"It's been about seven or eight weeks since my trip now, I guess about seven weeks," she said. "I finally feel back to normal."

A Placerville resident, Nicole is a physician's assistant in Sacramento and took a blood test in her office's lab. She says the results showed she had the antibodies for the hantavirus.

"I've been exposed to it at some point, I'm not sure when," she said. "All I can say is I've never been so sick in my life. The symptoms were almost textbook."

The virus killed two of people infected. Nicole considers herself lucky. If she knew she was exposed to the hantavirus, she would have immediately gotten help.

"By day two I would have gone to the doctor, most definitely," she said. "I would have never waited it out at home hoping it would go away."