The flu hits home for Davis County senator

When 30-year-old Jaman Davies started feeling sick a week ago Wednesday, neither he nor anyone in his family thought it was anything serious.

But what seemed to be a run-of-the-mill cold turned out to be fatal for the Centerville man.

Davies is the eighth Utahn to have died from novel H1N1 influenza, commonly known as the swine flu, according to his brother-in-law, state Sen. Dan Liljenquist, R-Bountiful.

"He just started feeling a cough coming on, a sore throat, and honestly, he didn't think anything of it," Liljenquist, said. "He's not somebody who goes to the doctor very often. He just thought, 'I'll let this thing get better.' "

Davies got worse last Saturday, though, and died that day.

A real estate investor who had never married, he had lived with his parents for the past year. They found their oldest son in his bed that evening, Liljenquist said. Davies wasn't breathing and could not be resuscitated, he said, because his lungs had apparently filled with fluid.

Because Davies was overweight, that was seen as contributing to his death. It wasn't until Wednesday — a week after Davies first displayed symptoms — that Liljenquist and other family members were notified he had contracted the H1N1 flu.

"It just seems surreal that my brother-in-law was the eighth person who died" from the deadly flu, said Liljenquist, who sits on the Legislature's health and human services appropriations subcommittee. "It didn't even cross our minds, even with all the news coverage."

Liljenquist got the news during a closed-door Senate GOP caucus Wednesday. "I felt badly," he said, because he had shaken the hands of his fellow senators, as well as many others, during interim-day meetings.

Many of the senators who attended the caucus headed for a dispenser of hand sanitizer on a receptionist's desk. Liljenquist, who has had a sore throat and raspy voice, said he went to the doctor to be tested for H1N1 himself.

No one in his or his wife Brooke's families have shown any signs of the flu, and Liljenquist expects to receive a clean bill of health, too. His advice to anyone with symptoms is to see a doctor.

"Make sure, if you're feeling sick, you get treatment and you're vigilant in how you interact with folks," Liljenquist said. "Some people think this flu is different than you would feel with a normal flu. And it's not. That's the real challenge here."