Asthma ITSELF can be deadly. Add a viral or bacterial infection to that and poof, dead, or close to it.
I do not consider people with asthma "pretty healthy" people. Asthma can take on a life of it's own.
Lungs of fatal swine flu patients badly damaged
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090903/h1n1_lungs_090903/20090903
Sep. 3 2009
The lungs of people who have died from swine flu look more like those of the victims of H5N1 avian influenza than those of people who succumb to regular flu, the chief of infectious diseases pathology at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control says.
Study of about 70 fatal H1N1 cases so far also reveals there may be more incidences of co-infections with bacteria than was earlier thought, Dr. Sherif Zaki told The Canadian Press in an interview.
The damage to lung tissue is consistent with that inflicted by ARDS or acute respiratory distress symptom, Zaki says, referring to an often-fatal, difficult-to-treat syndrome that can have a number of causes. The U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute estimates about 30 per cent of people who develop ARDS die.
“In terms of the disease, yes, it (H1N1) is remarkably different than seasonal flu,” Zaki says. “The pathology looks very similar to H5(N1).”
Swine flu hitting young, healthy adults hardest (Canada)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/swine-flu-hitting-young-healthy-adults-hardest/article1203826/
The young and healthy who feel invincible from the H1N1 “swine flu” influenza pandemic may not be as bulletproof as they think, warn public health experts.
Nearly two-thirds of Canadians hospitalized due to swine flu, and half of those who have died, had no underlying health conditions.
Experts do not yet understand why the new strain affects some healthy people so severely, ravaging their lungs with an aggressive pneumonia and forcing them to spend weeks in hospital, attached to breathing machines.