'His lungs… looked like Swiss cheese': Northern Michigan chef, 29, dies of rare fungal infection that's spreading across U.S.

HARBOR SPRINGS (WWJ) - A rare fungal infection primarily seen in the Midwest and the south-central and Southeastern United States took the life of a Northern Michigan chef after he contracted the disease just before Thanksgiving.

In an update from family and friends in a GoFundMe post , Ian Pritchard, 29, died on Saturday (Feb. 3) at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit after a months-long battle with blastomycosis, an infection caused by breathing in microscopic fungal spores from the air.

Ian was a beloved chef at Rodrigo's, a Mexican restaurant in Harbor Springs with his father Ron Pritchard -- a well-known radio DJ with Midwestern Broadcasting Company in Traverse City currently on the air with WCCW-FM and KLT The Rock Station -- adding that he was a "good kid."

"People love his food, people love him," Ron said.

According to his GoFundMe , Ian was first admitted to a hospital in Petoskey the week before Thanksgiving, but the disease ravaged his lungs in the following weeks. A little over a month later, doctors said he was in critical condition and a lung transplant was Ian's best chance of surviving the infection.

"They showed us a picture of his lungs, and they literally looked like Swiss cheese," Ron explained to WPBN .

Ian continued to battle the disease after he was transferred down to Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit when his condition worsened further. His doctors took him out of a "medically induced coma," where he remained heavily sedated and on life support, but able to communicate with non-verbal cues, such as hand squeezing, his family said.

"ECMO machine is helping to keep the lungs from having to work too hard while they heal up," an update on the crowdfunding page read. "The family and doctors are hopeful that the lung infection will be eradicated so that then Ian will be eligible for lung transplants. (They cannot do a transplant until the fungal infection is gone)."

Ian's parents were preparing to have him moved from Henry Ford to Corewell Hospital in Grand Rapids (formerly Spectrum Health) to continue treatment with an Infectious Disease Specialist and ultimately have a lung transplant preformed, but things took a drastic turn.

Over this past weekend, the family said Ian was alert when he made a final request.

"Ian must have felt that he was not going to come out of it and his strength to go on was depleted," the GoFundMe update read. "So Ron, Linda and Ian’s sister Megan told him that it was OK to let go. They did not want to be selfish and hang onto him if he was ready to go, so life support was turned off and he passed away."

The family said through friends that "there will never be enough words to thank everyone for all of the love, support, prayers, and generous donations."

As of Thursday afternoon, the GoFundMe had raised $20,145 of their $25,000 goal.

The donations went towards helping the Pritchard family with their food, travel and lodging expenses while making the weekly trips to Detroit from Northern Michigan, but now the remaining funds will "definitely help alleviate the financial stress on Ron and Linda to provide their son with a proper funeral and burial," the GoFundMe page stated.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , the fungus that infected Ian lives in the environment, particularly in moist soil and in decomposing plant matter such as wood and leaves.

It is found in midwestern, south-central, and southeastern states, particularly in areas surrounding the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys, the Great Lakes, the Saint Lawrence River, and the western United States -- but cases have been seen as far as Vermont and up into Canada.

When contracted, patients can display symptoms similar to other lung infections that usually appear between three weeks and three months after a person breathes in the fungal spores.

Symptoms include:

• Fever
• Cough
• Shortness of breath
• Night sweats
• Muscle aches or joint pain
• Weight loss
• Chest, rib, or back pain
• Fatigue (extreme tiredness)

Some patients never get ill when they are exposed while others can develop severe infections -- as in Ian's case -- that can spread from the lungs to other parts of the body such as skin, bones and joints, and the central nervous system, the CDC stated.

Blastomycosis can be fought with prescription antifungal medication with Itraconazole used to treat mild to moderate blastomycosis while Amphotericin B is prescribed for more severe cases.

Experts say the disease is appears to be creeping across the U.S. with confirmed cases popping up in Colorado, the CDC reports.