Long Island woman quarantined with bird mite infes

L.I. Woman Quarantined With Bird Mite Infestation

Victim Put In Bio Containment Suit, Taken By Hazmat Team To Nassau University Hospital And Placed In Isolation

'They Were Coming Out Of Her Nose, Out Of Her Ears'

LEVITTOWN, N.Y. (CBS) ― There was a warning issued Thursday to homeowners after a Long Island woman's home was infested with "blood-sucking" parasites. It wasn't bed bugs that caused the problem, but bird mites.

"I was hysterical crying last night," said Crystal Shea, the daughter of the bird mite victim. "You know, I feel terrible for her. How do you watch your mom come out in a hazmat suit?"

The emotional daughter of the bird mite victim shared ominous looking photos of her mother being suited up in bio containment gear by emergency medical technicians responding to her S.O.S. from her Levittown home. They stripped her of her clothing, shoes, carted off her mattress, confiscated the wild bird nest from a bathroom vent and transported the patient to the quarantine unit at Nassau University Medical Center.

CBS 2 HD spoke by phone with patient Nina Bradica from her hospital bed in the isolation unit.

"My whole shower was covered with them," said Bradica, 45. "I didn't even know they were there at first, I was drying myself with my towel in the bathroom. That's how they got on me."

One of Bradica's doctors told CBS 2 HD bird mites can be a very severe problem.

"They can be a nuisance and some people have been infected for years with these bird mites and have had difficulty eradicating them," said Dr. Kenneth Steier.

Added Dr. Shadab Ahmed of Nassau Medical Center, "They can stick to the body. They are extremely tiny. I just sent three to be tested to the parasitology lab for identification."

Doctors say there is absolutely no public health hazard. Mites can't feed off human skin and will eventually drop off, but until then …

"They were biting her all night long," Shea said. "They were coming out of her ears, her nose, some other places."

Bradica tried to describe her discomfort.

"They do go inside you. They go in your nose. They go in your ears. They go in your mouth."

The victim's irate family is blaming her landlord, who drove off without commenting on why the home had not been fumigated.

Bradica told CBS 2 HD she is covered with welts and red bumps and wonders if her home will ever be livable again.

It does make you rather sick to your stomach....