Michael Neill, 27, of Quispamsis, is New Brunswick's first victim of drug-resistant swine flu. (Courtesy Carolyn Neill)The mother of New Brunswick's first victim of a drug-resistant strain of swine flu is urging everyone to get vaccinated.

Michael Thomas Neill, 27, of Quispamsis, died Monday at the Saint John Regional Hospital, after battling the virus for nearly four weeks.

Although Neill suffered from asthma, he didn't get the swine flu shot. And the antiviral medications didn't work, making him the eighth and youngest fatality related to the swine flu in the province.

Carolyn Neill hopes her son's story will convince more people to get the shot.

"I can remember saying to him, 'Mike, with you, with asthma, if there's any sense in your head at all, go get that H1N1 needle.'"

'He said, I'm not gonna go line up in that great big long lineup. You know, I gotta get to work, I don't have time.'— Carolyn Neill, victim's mother

But he didn't listen.

"He said, 'I'm not gonna go line up in that great big long lineup. You know, I gotta get to work, I don't have time,'" she recalled, fighting back tears.

"I think … most young men today think it's not going to happen to them, that they're invincible. It's the same way with kids that get in cars and are drinking and driving and thinking that nothing's going to happen."

Earlier this month, New Brunswick health officials reached out to young men, saying men in their 20s were avoiding the swine flu vaccine more than any other group.

"Michael had lots of struggles in his life, but he was a survivor. But with the H1N1, that was something he couldn't survive," said Neill. "I just think it's just such a horrible bug, that it comes with such a vengeance that if you have any spot that's susceptible to anything like that, that's where it's going to hit."

Lengthy battle

On Nov. 29, Michael Neill, who had already visited a clinic, was coughing up blood and was taken by ambulance to hospital. He was treated with oxygen, inhalers, steroids and a pain medication, his mother said. He was also given a chest X-ray and sent home, but told to return if his condition worsened.

By Dec. 1, he went back to the emergency department, but was told he would face a six- to eight-hour wait.

"He said 'I can't wait six or eight hours, I'm too sick.' And she said, 'Well that's your choice. You know, you can go home and take cough medicine and maybe that will help you.' And he did. And then on Thursday morning he woke me up at five o'clock and he said, 'Mom, rip my chest open, I can't breathe,'" she said.

Carolyn Neill is encouraging everyone to get the swine flu shot after her 27-year-old son died from the virus. (CBC)"That was Dec. 3 and that night they came to me and said, 'We are going to put him on a ventilator'… I don't think he wanted to have it done and he said 'Oh mom, I think I feel better.'

"But I knew that he was scared to be put to sleep and have that done, and I said, 'Michael I would never let them do anything that would hurt you.' And he said, 'Mom, come closer.' That was the last words that he spoke."

If Michael Neill had been vaccinated, he would have been safe from the virus — even the drug-resistant strain, health officials have said.

"If you're a young person and you love your parents, if you don't do it for yourself, do it for mom and dad because you don't ever want to put your parents through what I went through, ever," said Carolyn Neill.

"And you might think that it's not going to happen to you, but it can. So please, if you have any type of illness at all, go and get that shot."

If they refuse, parents should step in, she said.

"If you have to, take them by the neck, by the hand, throw them in the car, but take them and get that needle, because to look at Michael, you'd think 'Oh, this is a great big brute, nothing could ever take him down.' But H1N1 took him down hard," she said.

"Michael was a big, strapping boy, but he looked like a very rough, tough guy. But he was like the Jolly Green Giant. He loved his friends, he loved children and I've had many calls of people that told me he always was kind to his friends."

About two-thirds of New Brunswick residents have been vaccinated.

Although mass vaccinations have ended, shots are still available in Victorian Order of Nurses clinics, public health clinics and from certain family doctors.

A funeral service for Michael Neill will be held Thursday at 10 a.m. at Brenan's Chapel in Saint John.