29-year-old Ryan Havelka died of a rare, but deadly illness in early August. And today, Patty Havelka spoke out about hantavirus.

Now the Health Department usually does not hold conferences like this one because of confidentiality. But, Ryan's widow Patty insisted she wanted to get the word out about the illness that took her husbands life. Fighting back tears today, Patty described her husband....

17:28 "We've been married for, well, it would have been six years this last Sunday; and we have three kids, four-and-a-half, 2-and-a-half and one. A lot of his life was just being a good father to the girls." 17:51

Kirby Kruger is the state epidemiologist and says while hantavirus is rareit's important for people to be cautious.

3:44 "It's difficult for people to distinguish between the different species of small mammals, small rodents in North Dakota. From our point of view, we encourage people to view and treat every small rodent as a potential carrier of hantavirus. 4:01

Now some background about hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. It was first identified in 1993 in the Four Corners...the Southwest area that shares borders with New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah. The symptoms, right there on your screen, include fatigue, fever, muscle aches, nausea and diarrhea. Now hantavirus *cannot* be spread from person to person. Around half of those people infected with hantavirus die. watch the video | save this article / add to your favorites list