ROWAN COUNTY, N.C. — COVID-19 forced a daughter to say goodbye to her father over FaceTime who passed away.
Kenneth Cook, a resident of Citadel Salisbury, passed away Tuesday at the hospital, according to his daughter.
“I hurt when I listen to the news now,” Karen Baldwin said. “It’s more real.”
Baldwin said she received a call from the hospital late Monday night. She said her father’s sudden illness blindsided her family.
“I just talked to someone last week and he was fine,” she said.
Baldwin said Citadel Salisbury, now home to 96 positive COVID-19 cases, called her earlier this month to tell her a single resident tested positive but didn’t indicate an outbreak at the facility or any reason to be overly concerned and never called again.
“I struggled with a bit of anger that he was sick first of all, that no one called me,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin said she’s felt a range of emotions since her father passed away, made worse by the fact Coronavirus fears kept her from his side in his final moments.
“Then I started dealing with all this guilt,” she said.
Some have compared nursing homes and assisted living facilities to cruise ships because they are especially vulnerable to outbreaks.
Jaylee Wilson works for Affinity Living Group, which operates assisted living and memory facilities across North Carolina.
“What keeps me up at night is just making sure that at the end of the day, we’re providing the very best care to our residents and taking care of our staff,” Affinity’s divisional vice president of operations for the Charlotte market said.
While Wilson confirmed an outbreak at a Henderson County facility, she said the company’s Charlotte-area facilities have remained free of COVID-19 thanks in large part to extra precautions, including screening staff before every shift and making sure employees have the protective equipment they need.
“My main worry is that they always have what they need to do their job,” she said. “They are the heroes. They’re the ones who are coming out of their homes, sacrificing their health and well-being every day.”
Speaking of health care heroes, a simple act of compassion by the emergency room doctor who treated Karen Baldwin’s father continues to give her peace. He let her use his personal phone to say a final farewell over FaceTime.
“I could see dad’s face and of course he had the mask on and I said, ‘Hey daddy,’ and when I did, he opened his eyes,” Baldwin said. “The doctor said, ‘Every time you tell him you love him, he squints his eyes, so he’s hearing you.’”
Her dad’s eyes always held a special place when she visited him over the years, especially as his health declined.
“He was usually asleep and I’d say, ‘Hi daddy,’ just seeing those eyes open and he’d say, ‘Hey pretty girl,” she recalled fondly.
Today she holds that memory close.
“It’s ok. I’ll be okay and my prayers -are that everybody will,” she said.
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