Parents warn others of common deadly virus

They are viruses nearly as frequent as the common cold. But if a newborn contracts one of the 70 or so different strains of Enteroviruses it can kill them.

An Arvada couple knows that heartbreak all too well.


Now they are spreading awareness about the risks to newborns, so other families won't suffer the loss of a child.

They started up Colorado's chapter of the "R baby foundation", which raises money to improve medical care for newborns. They will hold a 2-mile walk and family festival later this month.

Corrine and Dan McMurray played with their three kids in the backyard sunday. There are the twins, Isabelle and Tyler, 14-months and Tommy, 4.

But they have another daughter.

"Our little boy knows he's got a sister in heaven," says Dan.

Rhiannon would have been three this year.

But nine days after her birth, suddenly, an enterovirus infection shut down her internal organs.

"She was on life support. She was being kept alive by a machine basically. They said there's nothing else they could do," says Corinne.

Doctors at children's hospital say enteroviruses are everywhere -- that everyone's had many of them in their lifetime.

But for a newborn's first two weeks of life, they can be deadly. "Those are babies who got a very high load of the virus from an infected parent or household member. and they have no antibodies yet to fight that off," says dr. harley rotbart, of children's hospital.

"When we had tommy we never thought about it. We went everywhere in public and it was fine. We had our daughter and carried on the same way," says Dan.

That changed with the twins. They asked for no visitors who'd been sick and demanded plenty of handwashing from visitors.

"Knock on wood, they haven't been sick," says Corinne.

But still their hearts hurt for a life that never got to live.

"She's in our hearts. She's everywhere. She'll be walking with us," says Dan.

They will walk to raise money for children's hospital and their care for newborns on Saturday, Sept. 26 at City Park.

"We want to do this for Rhiannon, for her memory, in her honor. so she lives on. it's not fair she only got to live 9 days," says Corinne.

If you want to participate you can find all the information you need at www.rbabywalkcolorado.org