Postal worker recovering from Legionnaires' Diease

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05:21 PM EDT on Monday, June 6, 2005

Reported by: Kathryn Barrett

After two weeks in the hospital, 45-year-old Bonita Matta went home Monday.

The Portsmouth woman works on a mail sorting line at the Church Street post office in Norfolk. She and a co-worker have confirmed cases of Legionnaires’ disease. Matta suspects that’s where she contracted it.

"I work from 11 to 7:30, so I don't have too much time to go anywhere else. I don't know otherwise where I would have contracted this disease."

Many people get Legionnaires' and never know it, thinking they’ve got the flu. Matta’s reaction was dramatically different.

"I had a 104 fever. I went to the VA in Hampton and the doctors there told me I had the flu. I could barely drive, so my son drove and we got as far as George Washington Highway. “

She says she doesn't remember the six days she spent in the intensive care unit at Maryview Hospital in Portsmouth.

It was frightening for her children.

"It wasn't pleasant for them to watch and see me with no response, just hooked up to machines."

Post office representatives are waiting for the results of testing on the post office itself for Legionella bacteria.

State and local health officials have been investigating; so has the Occupational Health and Safety Administration.