TOOELE, Utah — A Tooele family hopes their daughter’s story will educate others about how dangerous an E. coli infection can be in young children and how to prevent it from happening. 

Edward Jones said his two-year-old daughter, Olivia, fell ill after eating out in July.

“Olivia had blood in her stool. She had diarrhea, so we were starting to be concerned within 24 hours,” Jones said.

Olivia’s parents said they changed 90 diapers in just two days.

They rushed their little girl to the hospital, but said doctors had a hard time pin pointing what was causing her to be so sick.

“They told us to let it pass,” said Jones. “She cried a lot, and it was very hard on our family.” 

The family kept pushing for answers.

They said doctors agreed to run more tests and eventually spotted something in her blood.

“They were able to draw her blood, and that’s when it came back that she had some sort of HUS (hemolytic uremic syndrome) or kidney failure,” Jones said.

Olivia had emergency surgery and started dialysis.

Her road to recovery has been a long one, but family feels no matter what happens, she is a fighter and will come out on top.

“Doctors say worst case, she gets a kidney transplant; best case, she fully recovers, and she is somewhere in between that,” said Jones.

The state health department said hemolytic uremic syndrome, which is caused by an E. coli infection, is so rare that since 2000, they have only seen about five cases a year. About 55% of these cases require dialysis and 5% die.

“I would have never imagined that eating bad food, my daughter would be hospitalized and almost die,” said Jones.

Family said Olivia’s medical bills are mounting and are now close to $150,000.

Friends and family set up a GoFundMe page* to help with the expenses.

They hope her story will prompt others to be cautious about eating out, wash your hands and produce, and to cook meat throughly.

“She ate somewhere bad, she got this disease and went through hell and it will probably affect her the rest of her life,” said Jones. “But she is a fighter!”

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