Patricia Alice “Pat” Shaw, of East Lyme, Connecticut, loved the outdoors. She walked her dogs three times a day. She often sat by the backyard swimming pool at her home, surrounded by woods.
The walks, the pool, the woods – any of those pleasures may have led to the mosquito bite that killed her weeks later on Sept. 19.
Before Pat came down with a high fever and extreme fatigue, the 77-year-old and her husband, Gerald Shaw, a retired obstetrician, knew the heightened danger mosquitoes pose in parts of New England – how some carry a deadly virus called Eastern equine encephalitis, commonly called “Triple E.”
They took precautions.
“We had citronella candles burning to ward off the mosquitoes, but that apparently didn’t happen this time,” Gerald said.