Death of a Stuy Student Leads to Meningitis Fears

The Department of Health believes that the sudden death of a 17-year-old Stuyvesant High School senior on Thursday may have been from a bacterial infection known to cause meningitis. Ava Hecht of Bayside, Queens died Thursday afternoon after friends say she appeared fine in class earlier in the week and even had been working on homework the night before. Health officials began alerting students at Stuyvesant Friday, where a moment of silence was held for Ava and seniors were broken the news in an assembly. Ava sang in the chorus, was a cartoonist for the school paper, The Spectator, and drew a comic, "Soprano Man", that was based on a singing friend whom she transformed into a super hero. The school has set up a Facebook page as a memorial and in less than 48 hours it already has 1,300 members and 75 wall postings. A doctor for the DOH said that while there are a few dozen meningitis cases annually, “We see something like this once or twice a year.”