Widow wonders if Katrina caused husband's death

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Monday, May 8, 2006

Widow wonders if Katrina caused husband's death

Volunteer developed fatal lung ailment

Associated Press

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?

AID=/20060508/NEWS0104/605080377/1008/NEWS01

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Donna Knight said helping Hurricane Katrina victims

in New Orleans might have led to her husband's death, but she has no

doubt he would do it all over again.

" He felt like if he helped one person go find a better life

somewhere, maybe that was God's will, " Donna Knight said.

Delbert Knight, 69, died April 4 in Lexington, less than eight

months after he drove a bus and transported evacuees from the

flooded city of New Orleans in the days after Hurricane Katrina.

Doctors said Knight had histoplasmosis, an infectious disease of the

lungs caused by a fungus that grows in soil, mainly soil

contaminated with bat or bird droppings. They said it's possible he

contracted it in New Orleans, although they won't ever know for

sure.

" We always thought to the very end that this was something doctors

could treat and he would get better, " Donna Knight said. " We just

had no idea. "

Delbert Knight went to New Orleans after the Federal Emergency

Management Agency called Wah , owner of Blue Grass Tours in

Lexington, where Knight worked, and asked if buses and volunteer

drivers were available to help in the relief effort.

sent two buses and four drivers.

" Delbert was the first person to volunteer, " said. " No matter

what it was or how bad the situation, he just wanted to be a part of

helping those people. That was his nature. "

Knight and fellow Blue Grass Tours driver Rick Jouett transported

evacuees from New Orleans to Houston. But when they arrived, their

bus and about 30 others were kept away from the Astrodome.

The facility was full, and officials said evacuees were to stay on

the bus until another shelter was found. Knight and Jouett said at

the time that they kept the passengers on the bus for 24 hours until

an evacuation shelter could be found.

The frustrated passengers left the bus littered with trash and the

toilet clogged.

Knight cleaned the toilet himself, pulling out dirty diapers, cans

and other trash. That's where Donna Knight believes her husband

breathed in the fungus.

Marijo , a nurse for E. Tzouanakis, a pulmonary

doctor in Lexington, said that's possible, although she said the

fungus is common in Eastern Kentucky as well.

Knight began showing symptoms of histoplasmosis -- including trouble

breathing -- shortly after returning from New Orleans in early

September.

In November, a doctor found an abnormality in his lung caused by

histoplasmosis, which is normally not deadly.

But Knight also had emphysema, preventing his lungs from overcoming

the infection. Doctors removed part of his lung in February. He

spent more than two months in Central Baptist Hospital hooked to an

oxygen machine.

The last nine days, doctors placed him on a ventilator.

" Delbert Knight was a fighter, and he was a gentleman until the

end, " said , who was Knight's nurse. " I feel honored that I

got to know someone as kind and as caring as he was. "

More than 400 people attended his funeral. Many described him as a

man who would do anything to help a person in need.

Donna Knight sought solace in that aspect of his character.

" I would like to know of just one person who was on his bus and went

somewhere and made a better life for themselves, that somehow he

accomplished that, " she said. " But I guess that's something I'll

have no way of knowing. "