INDIANAPOLIS — Family and friends hope to raise awareness after the untimely death of two-year-old Kenley Ratliff from what doctors believe is a tick-borne disease.
Kenley died last Saturday, several days after being admitted to the Riley Hospital for Children, WISH-TV reported. She was treated for Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a tick-borne disease that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, causes a bacterial infection.
After being taken to the Emergency Room twice for strep throat and released, she was admitted to the hospital after her 104-degrees fever didn’t break.
Doctors treated her with antibiotics while diagnosing her symptoms: a brain infection, swollen hands, and rashes all over her body.
“She had purple rashes splotches all over her body and a uniform pattern just all over little tiny purple spots big purple patches,” said family friend Nichol Kirby, “just the condition of this poor baby laying there the way she was, it’s a mother’s nightmare, a father’s nightmare.”
Family and friends are not sure where the tick bite may have happened.
As of now, family and friends are waiting for autopsy confirmation of whether it was a tick bite that caused her death.
More than $4,000 has been raised to help with funeral expenses.
