LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. -- Whooping cough cases are on the rise and have actually doubled in South Carolina so far this year. But many parents have no idea they need to get vaccinated along with their children.
That's one reason why NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon, who has a baby due in just a few weeks, is launching an educational campaign.
His team doctor immunized many on Gordon's staff and his stepfather and manager talked about unknowingly putting Gordon's first child at risk.
Doctors say parents and caregivers are often the ones who pass on the disease, never knowing they had it.
It's a tragic reality for a Lancaster County couple who is working with Jeff Gordon.
Felicia and Darryl Dube didn't even know whooping cough still existed until they lost their 7-week-old son to the disease.
"We call Carter our little surprise blessing," said Felicia Dube. "He was a fiery little redhead. He did things on his own terms."
The little boy came early, before his mother's planned C-section.
"He was perfectly healthy -- 6 pounds, 6 ounces, 18 1/2 inches," Dube said.
But at 5 weeks old last January, Carter had a slight fever. Doctors thought maybe it was a cold, or the swine flu.
"And then one of the doctors mentioned Pertussis," said Dube. "And our first question was, 'what's Pertussis?' That's when they told us it was whooping cough. I thought, 'Do people get that anymore?'"
Their son quickly went downhill and doctors had to put him on a respirator at just 7 weeks old.
"I told him, we told him that we understood that if he was tired and he needed to go," said Dube. "That he had fought hard, that it was ok, that we understood."
Baby Carter died on a Thursday afternoon, just after five.
Darryl Dube can barely talk about it.
"I just cherished every minute," he told us, his lip quivering. "He was the spitting image of me, just miss him dearly."
A former firefighter, he was supposed to be a stay-at-home dad. His wife works at a corporate headquarters. The Dubes say they are normal people -- careful parents.
"I don't want people to think, 'It couldn't happen to me.' You don't know," said Felicia Dube.
They just want to get the word out about whooping cough and the vaccine that can prevent it to help others avoid their pain.
"You never think. We took home a perfectly healthy beautiful little boy and 7 weeks later he's gone," Dube said.
Area specialists say the trend now is to give the vaccine to teens and to anyone who might be caring for a young child so that the disease doesn't get passed on.
