Jake Shama of the Mitchell Republic reports that watching 6-year-old Eagan Hudson playing darts, eating candy and running around the Tyndall Community Center on Saturday, one would never guess he’d been released from the hospital just one month earlier.

Bon Homme County residents and others from as far away as Wisconsin filled the community center and raised more than $50,000 during the benefit for Eagan and his family, according to James Torsney, one of the event’s organizers.

The benefit was held to help pay medical bills, which the family incurred when Eagan was taken to Sanford Children’s Hospital in Sioux Falls for treatment of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), believed to be caused by an E. coli infection.

“It was really hard, and I had to go through lots of pain. It was not fun,” said Eagan, of Tyndall. “I just had all those doctors help me, and everything went good.”

Eagan and his brother, Kalem, 4, contracted E. coli in the middle of September. Kalem’s illness was resolved fairly quickly, his parents said, but Eagan’s condition didn’t improve. By Oct. 6, platelet and kidney tests raised red flags, and doctors sent Eagan to Sioux Falls for treatment.

Three days later, Eagan suffered a stroke, which temporarily prevented him from moving his right arm and leg, and he started having seizures the following morning.

Doctors had medication flown in from six hours away, and Eagan was sedated for 10 days, during which he was given nonstop dialysis treatments.