‘Getting It’, Meningitis documentary Aug 18-19
Includes interviews with Pinedale locals and the McKenzie Meningitis Foundation
August 12, 2006
The McKenzie Meningitis Foundation is proud to present a public showing of the new documentary about meningitis. The documentary will be shown in Pinedale on Friday, August 18, at the Pinedale Entertainment Center at 6:00 pm, and at the Big Piney Flick Theatre on Saturday at 5:30 pm. The program is free and the public is invited.
The documentary includes interviews with doctors and families across the nation who have been impacted by meningitis. Pinedale locals Ken, Laurie and Garrett Hartwig, as well as Pinedale graduates, Linda James and Karly Konicek, were interviewed. The Hartwigs created The McKenzie Meningitis Foundation in 2002, after their daughter, 18-year-old McKenzie, suddenly died of meningitis shortly after graduating from Pinedale High School and starting college at the University of South Dakota.
The tragedy of deaths due to meningitis is that it is a vaccine-preventable disease, but few parents are aware of the danger of meningitis or that the vaccine is available. Meningococcal meningitis is a bacterial infection that causes inflammation of the spinal cord and brain. It can cause serious illness or death over a period of one or two days or within a matter of hours. Many victims suffer permanent disabilities, such as hearing loss, blindness, brain damage, or limb amputation.
The film is narrated by actress Glenn Close, who has family ties to Sublette County.
Related Links:
McKenzie Meningitis Foundation interviewed for TV (Pinedale Online, May 31, 2006)
The McKenzie Meningitis Foundation, www.themckenziefoundation.org
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