State and county health officials said they are looking at eight possible cases of E. coli infections in the area discovered about a week and half ago. Both boys suffered from hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, a type of kidney failure that can result from this particular strain of E. coli, as well as other health complications, Texas Children's officials said. There have been six cases of E. coli this year in Harris County, but officials have not found anything suspicious about the incidents, according to Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services spokeswoman Martha Marquez. Symptoms associated with the shiga-producing E. coli include severe stomach cramps, watery and often bloody diarrhea as well as vomiting. Christine Mann, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said that to avoid the foodborne infection people should cook meat and wash produce thoroughly, and avoid cross-contamination of raw meat and cooked food.

Executive Vice President of the Texas Medical Center Ed Tucker, says that what makes the Texas Medical Center special is that it not only hospitals and clinics that provide treatment, but institutions committed to teaching and research as well. Inside the bustling 54-institution medical metropolis is the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, one of the world's most premier cancer institutions ,where more clinical trials are performed than anywhere in the country. At the Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Cooley performed the nation's first successful human heart transplant - and blocks from there is the Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center, where amongst DeBakey directed the first multiple-organ transplants from one donor to four recipients. Patients coming to the Texas Medical Center can also receive care at Harris Health System, the county's public health district, which includes three hospitals and 16 community health centers as well as the area's busiest emergency center, according to its website.

A jack-of-all-trades, the younger Calvin, 37, also volunteered for the Mertens department in Hill County, remodeled homes, dabbled in cattle and was a father of two sons, ages 5 and 9, with his wife expecting a third around Thanksgiving. Calvin was attending emergency medical technician class - hoping to make firefighting a career - when he got the page to head to the West fire, said his father, Phil Calvin. Jerry Chapman, a volunteer firefighter for Abbott who worked at the Black-eyed Pea, idolized Batman, but the 26-year-old was the real hero, said his roommate and co-worker Troy Moderzinsky. Instead of celebrating his graduation, his friends spent Saturday wearing black T-shirts with a Batman logo in his honor, raising money at the nearby Hillsboro restaurant for the relatives he left behind. Jimmy Matus, a native of West, would don a red suit and a white beard every Christmas to play Santa for the kids in his hometown. The 52-year-old father was off-duty at the time of the West fire but, with three decades of fire-fighting experience, he ran to assist when he saw the flames from a friend's house, said Cheryl Cash, a cousin of Harris' wife, Holly. Pustejovsky, described as a hard-working, honest man, married his wife a little more than a year ago, blending his son and her three children into one family. If emergency sirens sounded in West or Abbott, Cyrus Reed surely would be riding to the scene in his big red pick-up, said Mel Priest, his friend and colleague at West EMS. The 29-year-old with a big personality and a soft heart volunteered as a firefighter in Abbott and as a paramedic in West. Longtime West residents and brothers Doug, 50, and Robert Snokhous, 48, followed in their father's footsteps by becoming volunteer firefighters. Marqee Snokhous, Robert's daughter, said her father and uncle had been volunteering with the fire department since she was a young girl. Buck Uptmor wasn't a firefighter or a medic, but the 45-year-old father of three was someone in West who people called when they needed a hand, friends and family members said. A friend called him when the fire began to spread and he rushed to the scene, his 18-year-old daughter Dusty said.