[JewJoleSole]

Memorial for NYC's 1st swine flu death

Mon May 18, 9:20 am ET

NEW YORK – A makeshift memorial has been erected outside a New York City school for the assistant principal who was the city's first swine flu death.

Matthew Wiener (WEE'-ner) died Sunday after being hospitalized since Wednesday. He had been on a ventilator.

Candles and flowers were placed outside Intermediate School 238 in Queens in his memory.

Wiener's death is the country's sixth.

Officials closed the school Thursday. A total of 11 schools have been closed because of the city's most recent outbreak of the virus. The first known cases of swine flu in the United States appeared at another Queens school in late April.

A hospital spokesman says medical complications likely played a part in Wiener's death. But Wiener's family says the only pre-existing medical problem he had was gout.