With reported cases of swine flu rising quickly in the United States, it has certainly left its mark in Arizona and even a little closer to home — in Lake Havasu City.

Local 16-year-old Sarah Crabtree was air-evacuated from Havasu to Phoenix Children’s Hospital two weeks ago after H1N1 symptoms left her fighting for her life.

What began as a slight fever and a clear chest X-ray Oct. 5 at Sarah Crabtree’s local pediatrician, took two days to explode into a full-blown medical mission to save a teenager’s life including ventilators, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation procedures, open-heart surgeries and plasma exchange procedures resulting in the possibility that the girl’s future use of her right leg could be questionable, her father Bob Crabtree said Tuesday.

Both the ECMO and plasma exchange procedures are new medical technologies utilized as treatment options in the face of a situation like Sarah’s.

“It is because of the prayers and thoughts of so many people that she has made it through it,” Crabtree said Tuesday. “I can’t tell you how great this town is,” he said through a veil of emotion. “I am convinced that (Sarah) is better because of the thoughts and prayers of the community.”

At one point in the past few weeks, Sarah Crabtree’s doctors told her family she had only a 10 percent chance of survival.

“She was so critical at that time they couldn’t move her. They (doctors) had to perform the surgery right there in her room,” Bob Crabtree said.

Sarah Crabtree is slowly recovering in the intensive care unit at the Phoenix hospital. She is one of 14 children occupying the 16 ICU rooms at the hospital, said Bob Crabtree, a former Lake Havasu City councilman, and current Lake Havasu City constable.

The local teen was diagnosed with leukemia in March 2008. She went into remission about a year ago, her father said.

“We have just eight months to go before her treatments are over,” Bob Crabtree said.

H1N1 continues to be most dangerous among children and younger adults, according to an Associated Press story Tuesday. Statistics released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention including 28 states showed more than half of all hospitalizations were people 24 years of age or younger. More than a quarter of those were between the age of 15-28, the report said.

According to Arizona Department of Health Services, 489 lab-confirmed swine flu cases were reported the week of Oct. 4-10 — a 61 percent increase compared to the previous week. Mohave County reported 13 new cases during that same time period, bringing the total to 82 lab-confirmed cases since April of this year, according to state health department statistics.

Calls to Mohave County Public Health were not immediately returned.

Today’s News-Herald was unable to determine if there was a recent increase in the number of absences within Lake Havasu Unified School District late Tuesday.

The number of cases Havasu Regional Medical Center has seen come through the emergency room was also unavailable late Tuesday.

You may contact the reporter at jhanson@havasunews.com.