Shreveport Fire Department
801 Crockett Street Shreveport, Louisiana 71101
318/673-6655 FAX: 318/673-6656 http://www.shreveportfire.org
Kelvin J. Cochran, Fire Chief
August 30, 2004
PRESS RELEASE
To: Newsroom
For Immediate Release
Contact: Brian A. Crawford, Asst. to the Fire Chief
Phone: 673-6652, cell: 455-2609, page: 675-2137
Firefighter in Desperate Need of Organ Donor for Transplant
Shreveport bravest fighting for life after contracting hepatis on family vacation . . .
A Shreveport Fire Department officer is in the intensive care unity of Willis Knighton Medical Center fighting for his life this morning after being recently diagnosed with Hepatitis “A”. Captain Gene Williams, 49, was vacationing with family in Destin, Florida in July when after arriving back home to Shreveport his wife, Julie, became ill and was diagnosed with Hepatitis A. As a precaution, Gene was given a Globulin shot to boost his immunity against contracting the disease but a short time later, he also became ill and was diagnosed with the condition. While Julie recovered, Gene’s symptoms became increasingly worse. He was admitted to the hospital on August 16. Since that time his state has grown progressively worse and in the last week has become dire. His physicians, including the organ transplant team at LSUHSC say that Gene is in need of a liver transplant as soon as possible.
The Williams’ family and the Shreveport Fire Department are making a rare public appeal for a liver doner. Gene is already on the local, state, and national list – being priority one in Louisiana, but his family and the fire department feel that by bringing added attention to his and others in similar conditions, a family or individual may come forward to donate that would have not normally done so.
The circumstances of how exactly the William’s contracted the disease are still unclear. The family believes that they came into contact with the disease at a restauraunt while on their Florida vacation. Prior to the illness, Gene Williams was the picture of health and in good physical condition. He has been on the fire department since 1981 and served previously as a firefighter, and fire driver before being promoted to captain in 1999. Gene is the captain at Fire Station 5 on Stoner avenue, where he has spent the majority of his fire service career.

Hepatitis “A” Fact Sheet
Hepatitis A is one of five human hepatitis viruses that primarily infect the human liver and cause human illness. (There are many other viruses that can inflame the liver which infect us more generally.) The other known human hepatitis viruses are hepatitis B, C, D, and E. Hepatitis A is relatively unusual in nations with developed sanitation systems such as the United States. Nevertheless, it continues to occur here.
1. Each year, an estimated 100 persons die as a result of acute liver failure in the United States due to Hepatitis A1. Approximately 30 – 50,000 cases occur yearly in the United States and the direct and indirect costs of these cases exceed $300 million1. The unfortunate aspect of these statistics is that with 21st century medicine, Hepatitis A is totally preventable, and isolated cases, and especially outbreaks relegated to food consumption, need not occur.
Viral Hepatitis is a major public health concern in the United States, and a source of significant morbidity and mortality.1 The Hepatitis A virus or “HAV” is heat stable and will survive for up to a month at ambient temperatures in the environment.
How is Hepatitis A transmitted?
Hepatitis A is a communicable (or contagious) disease that spreads from person to person. (It is not acquired from animals, insects, or other means.) It is transmitted by the “fecal — oral route.” This does not mean, or course, that Hepatitis A transmission requires that fecal material from an infectious individual must come in contact directly with the mouth of a susceptible individual. It is almost always true that the virus infects a susceptible individual when he or she ingests it, but it gets to the mouth by an indirect route.
Food contaminated with the virus is the most common vehicle transmitting Hepatitis A. The food preparer or cook is the individual most often contaminating the food. He or she is generally not ill: the peak time of infectivity (i.e., when the most virus is present in the stool of an infectious individual) is during the 2 weeks before illness begins. Hepatitis A is spread almost exclusively through fecal-oral contact, generally from person-to-person, or via contaminated food or water. Outbreaks associated with food have been increasingly implicated as a significant source of Hepatitis A infection. Such “outbreaks are usually associated with contamination of food during preparation by an HAV-infected food handler.” Indeed, “[v]iral gastroenteritis was reported as the most common food-borne illness in Minnesota from 1984 to 1991, predominantly associated with poor personal hygiene of infected food handlers.”
Although ingestion of contaminated food is the most common means of spread for Hepatitis A, it may also commonly be spread by household contact among families or roommates, sexual contact, by the ingestion of contaminated water, by the ingestion of raw or undercooked fruits and vegetables or shellfish (like oysters), and by direct inoculation from persons sharing illicit drugs. Children often have asymptomatic or unrecognized infections and can pass the virus through ordinary play, unknown to their parents, who may later become infected from contact with their children.
Hepatitis A is much more common in countries with under-developed sanitation systems. This includes most of the world: an increased transmission rate is seen in all countries other than the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the countries of Western Europe. Within the United States, Native American reservations also experience a greatly increased rate of disease.