feb 4, 1988 - Unusual Circumstances Surrounded 12-year
old ″Poltergeist″ actress Heather O’Rourke
death
AP News 1988, Feb 4
Description:
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ The death of 12-year-old ″Poltergeist″ actress Heather O’Rourke was ″distinctly unusual″ because she lacked prior symptoms of the bowel defect that reportedly killed her, gastrointestinal doctors say.
″I would have expected a lot of (digestive) difficulties throughout her life and not just to have developed a problem all of a sudden,″ said Dr. Daniel Hollander, head of gastroenterology at University of California, Irvine, Medical Center.
Other specialists, also unconnected with the case, said Wednesday it was possible she died as the resulted of a birth defect, but added that the circumstances of her death were extremely unusual.
A private funeral was scheduled for Friday at Westwood Village Mortuary in Los Angeles for the blond youngster, whose character encountered ghosts and warned ″They’re heeeere 3/8″ in ″Poltergeist″ and ″They’re baaaack 3/8″ in the sequel. Filming was completed on a third ″Poltergeist″ movie last June.
Terry Merryman, spokeswoman for Children’s Hospital of San Diego, said Heather died Monday of septic shock due to congenital stenosis of the lower intestine, or bowel. That means she died of shock caused by infection in the blood, which in turn was caused by a birth defect that made a section of her intestine abnormally narrow.
Such narrowing typically reduces bowel diameter to one-eighth inch instead of the normal half inch, impeding movement of food and fluid through the bowel. The defect usually is apparent at birth because it causes severe abdominal pain, vomiting and nausea, Hollander said, adding that it is very rare for the disorder to kill an older child who lacked prior symptoms.
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