Surviving the Rodent Disease Linked to Gene Hackman’s Wife: My Harrowing Experience and Urgent Message

Debbie Zipperian still vividly remembers the putrid smell of rodent excrement and urine while cleaning out a shed on her ranch in 2011.

But as a former cowgirl who grew up in rural Montana, she was well versed with the more unglamorous side of farm life so didn’t pay it much attention at the time. 

Around a week later, however, the then 46-year-old became uncharacteristically tired. She felt confused and ordinary day-to-day chores like feeding the horses had become an impossible challenge.

A few days later, pain erupted in her back and shoulders. Soon she could no longer tolerate sounds or sunlight. Then came the uncontrollable behavior.  

Her family initially thought she might have the flu. But to their horror, after she became so desperately ill that she needed to be airlifted to hospital, doctors diagnosed her with a rare rodent-borne disease called hantavirus. 

This is the same terrifying virus that medical investigators believe killed Gene Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa.

Debbie Zipperian, from Montana, survived Hantavirus after being diagnosed with the disease aged 46. The former cowgirl told the Daily Mail how it upended her life

Prior to their sudden deaths, Betsy Arakawa was Gene’s primary caretaker (Pictured: Hackman and Arakawa in 1991)

The nation was left stunned last month when the couple’s mummified bodies were discovered in their $3.5 million Santa Fe home on February 26. 

Rumors swirled over what could have killed them until, on Friday, an autopsy revealed Betsy, 65, had died after hantavirus caused a deadly build-up of fluid in her lungs, known as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS). 

She had been the primary caregiver to Gene, 95, who succumbed to advanced Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular disease around a week later.

In Debbie’s case, doctors surmised that she must have inhaled hantavirus-contaminated feces while cleaning out her shed in Clancy, Montana. 

She told them how, at times, her face had been practically right next to mouse droppings while she cleaned out the outbuilding where she was feeding a stray cat.

Experts told the Daily Mail this is how they presume Gene Hackman’s wife Betsy also caught the virus. There was no rat infestation in the couple’s home, but there were rodent droppings found in their garage and outhouses.

The disease is rare in the US, with only around 864 cases recorded between 1993 and 2022 – the equivalent of about 30 a year. Most are reported in rural parts of the country. 

Early symptoms include a fever, headache and muscle pains, which means it can be easily confused with the flu before more serious warning signs appear, according to the CDC.

Debbie, now 59, says this is exactly what it was like for her. 

At the time, she lived on the ranch with her husband Ken and her in-laws. 

They had all thought she had flu when the symptoms first came on, but she was convinced it was something more serious. 

When the pain began in her back and shoulders a few days later she drove to her chiropractor, who swiftly sent her to the ER where she got a spinal tap before being discharged. 

Then everything becomes a blur. She knows she was taken to the hospital again by her family but cannot remember what happened.

Soon after, she went back a third time after she had a ‘manic episode’.

She says: ‘I was told I was pretty crazy, out of control. I couldn’t stand sounds, I had blankets over my hands, I was freaking out at things, and my husband took me to the hospital that night.’

She was later told that while at the hospital she started to behave ‘like a bobcat’ and that nurses had to to use straps to tie her to the bed.

She also recalls hallucinating and imagining at times that the room was on fire or that she was in an underground Russian laboratory. 

The virus had caused widespread inflammation throughout her body, affecting her brain. Her heart stopped twice and she had to be resuscitated.

She was eventually flown by helicopter to a bigger hospital in Montana, where she was intubated, placed on a ventilator and put into a week-long coma to allow her body to recover.

Doctors surmised that Debbie must have inhaled hantavirus-contaminated feces while cleaning out her shed in Clancy, Montana

The mother-of-three says she survived the virus because she kept battling to see her children. She is pictured above holding a grandchild

While fighting back tears at the memory, Debbie says: ‘If nobody had been at the ranch, I probably would have died from this.

She adds: ‘I don’t think [Gene Hackman’s wife] knew she had it. You don’t think it is something serious in the beginning. I feel like she just collapsed while trying to take her meds. I imagine she didn’t understand what was going on.’ 

There are no specific drugs available to treat Hantavirus, so doctors typically leave it to take its course. 

Although, some medical experts now prescribe the antiviral ribavirin – which is used to treat hepatitis C – after studies showed it could be effective against some strains of the disease.

Debbie says she was so delirious she can’t remember most of what happened during her treatment.

But she is thankful to have survived when so many others do not. 

Scientists estimate that between 38 and 50 percent of Hantavirus patients succumb to the disease, but the CDC has not reported a figure for the total number of deaths.

When the infection had cleared, it took Debbie about a year to learn to walk and talk again. She describes an agonizing period in rehab where she struggled to complete simple tasks such as standing up without help.

Even now, 14 years on, she still suffers from lingering symptoms including neuropathy – pain in the nerves – that she describes as ‘unimaginable’. 

She has also been left with a brain injury that causes her day-to-day difficulties, and says she will start throwing up if she tries to do the vacuuming and sweeping on the same day. 

Her husband died from cancer two years after she fell ill. And after being forced to give up her horses, she now lives with her sister in Trina in the Clancy area. 

The mother-of-three says she believes she survived the virus because she kept battling to see her children.  

In the hope of raising more awareness and preventing others from suffering the same fate, she warns: ‘It just takes one mouse and it doesn’t have to be a whole bunch of mouse [feces], it can just be one. 

‘If you even see mouse [feces], don’t go near it, spray it with bleach.’