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Remembering three victims of COVID-19 and those they’ve left behind

Over year after COVID-19 was first detected in the US, over 400,000 Americans have lost their lives to the virus. There are over 400,000 stories to be told. These are a few of them.

I’m the I C u nurse and I help all these people. And I couldn’t save my own family. I just hope he knows how much he meant to everybody and how much he meant to our kiddos. Jason England was only 38 years old when he died from Kobe. 19, he found out I believe it was November 5th. And then by november 8th, he had passed away. So it was a huge shock toe. Everyone obviously being younger. Um, his father hadn’t heard from him in a couple days and went to go look for him and went to his house. And that is the one that found him. So a crushing tragedy to that entire school district. The Belmont Clem E School district is where Jason taught math and science to the gifted program. He was beloved and truly a joy to be around. According toe, all the other teachers, I think the hardest part is the guilt because he was new to our district. You go into a staff meeting on a Monday morning and you’re given 15 minutes to find out your coworker has passed, and then you’re expected to cope with your own emotions and then go in and help your kids. The kindergarten teacher, Marty Mark Ward, decided. You know that wasn’t enough, she said. They were all walking around like zombies and just in complete and utter grief and shock. And she felt like she needed to do something. They needed to do something. I think for Marnie and all of the teachers, there was no outlet. There was no way to grieve. They couldn’t hug each other. They couldn’t gather. They couldn’t talk together about it. And it was such Ah loss so quickly. So there was no processing this. There was just so much grief and they didn’t know how to process and how to deal with it. And they thought, What is a way we can honor him and keep his name and his legacy going? Because teachers, as we all know, are so important. And that’s what he loved. They thought Jason being a teacher and putting himself through college, not coming from a wealthy family. He worked really hard to become a teacher, and they thought a scholarship fun would be the best way to honor him. So they started raising money in all kinds of different ways. Parents donated businesses donated. It just kind of snowballed. They were T shirts. They had the students collect loose change. They had all kinds of small things that added up, and they ended up raising more than $10,000. Marnie called Jason’s family and said, Look, we want to do this, you know, in his honor and his dad said, Well, let us give some money to I really appreciate I really don’t want to take their money But then I think it’s probably part of their healing process to They asked Jason’s dad, what criteria would you like to see in this scholarship? And he said, I would like it to go to someone who wants to be a teacher like Jason. I just hope he knows how much he meant to everybody and how much he meant to our kiddos. Jason Story is like many others, it’s incredibly sad. We’ve lost teachers, we’ve lost nurses, we’ve lost so many community members and I think it’s just important to remember that as we continue to fight, this is we continue to deal with this those air, the stories that are important and show just how tragic this pandemic has been. I called him a couple days after his son passed, and the superintendent had kind of warned me, You know, he’s really suffering and he’s really having a hard time. And I picked up the phone and I’m like, I do not wanna have to call this father who just lost his son And right away on the phone, he was talking to me through tears and it was so hard. And But even within a minute or two, he sort of got happier. It’s almost like you could tell he was smiling on the phone and he said, Thank you for putting Jason’s story out there. Thank you for, you know, showing people that his life mattered and that he’s not just a statistic. So I think I would really just want people to remember that these air people’s lives and they matter and their stories matter. My father was dancing two days before he was sick. He he was fine. Nice stock open rip the life from their bodies. Lasagne and Dennis met a little bit later in life, and he adopted her son and that was something bright and said, he said most people aren’t lucky enough to get to choose their dad. And I got to choose mine and I couldn’t have made a better choice. He was kind. He was compassionate. There’s going He would do 50 push ups and then take two more steps than 50 more. Push up. He was very silly, very full of life. Love to dance. Linda loved her church. She loved her friends. She left a text. She lived on her own, took care of herself. She still was driving that sort of thing. I mean, still very much full of life. She did all her own shopping. Everything was very bubbly. She she loved people. My grandmother was fine. Back in October, we had a devastating historic ice storm here in the Oklahoma City metro. And because of that, hundreds of thousands of people lost power. People were moving in with relatives. If you have power, will come stay with you. That sort of thing. So Lausanne, the I C u nurse. Her mom came to live with the family, and that’s where all of this kind of started. Unfortunately, it’s a very okay Hey was like, I can’t catch my breath. He’s like I don’t know. I just feel kind of funny and he’s never ever sick. And then my mom is like, you know, I don’t feel very good Things just rapidly went downhill for both. She was smart about it. She isolated them in different areas of the house, and she really monitored them like she would her own patients. They had a pulse ox. They were taking their temperatures every day, and there was kind of a group chat where she would say, Okay, I need your numbers. E need the latest. At five o’clock in the afternoon, he touched me that his oxygen was 95. You know, my mom’s texting the same Tim temp. They’re taking Tylenol and ibuprofen and Dennis, her husband, who was in his for fifties. He was very healthy. I mean, an athlete. Marathon push ups, every day. Athletic guy. His condition declined really the fastest I put the pull socks on his oxygen was 72. He was hypoxic at that point, which means his brain was going without oxygen. Meanwhile, I’m thinking my mom has a breathing machine and oxygen in her room, but you can’t take it from want to give it to the other. That’s when she realized okay, we have No, there’s no other way I could take care of you here. So she called 911 Dennis went to the hospital and then it wasn’t a day or two later than that listens. Mom started rapidly deteriorating. I laid on on the floor of her room listening to her die. One of the most heartbreaking moments of that interview is Linda turned to her daughter instead. It’s okay with you. I just want to die here if I’m gonna die. I said, Mom, it’s okay if you die in my house. I just can’t help you anymore. I mean, can you imagine having a conversation like that with your mom and Lizzie and said, It’s okay if you want to die in my house, You could die in my house the next morning came around and there was a conversation that lasagne, of course, never wanted to have a lot of her. Anything at the house, you know, Thio ease to ease her. Paying normal is like 98 200. And so, for the second time in just a couple of days, the ambulance and the fire truck showed up at that same house and took Linda away. Lausanne was able to as a nice, you know, she was able to dawn PPE, go in and be with her mama’s. She died, which lasagne even said was a beautiful gift that most families were not getting. Right now most people are in there dying by themselves, she said. Lausanne. You fan the best daughter, she said. Look at me. No regrets. E just wanted to hold her while she was dying, and I couldn’t. After she passed, I gave her a bath and I took all the leads off of her and fixed her hair. My mother’s strength and courage let my grandmother grew out with dignity and grace. But one of Linda’s questions Waas House Dennis and sorry, Lausanne said. He’s great. He’s doing really, really great. He’s doing really good, she said, because I knew if I told her the truth, she would hang on for me and she would want to be there for me if I told her that did. This is dying. And so she made the choice to be a little dishonest with her mom to protect her mom. I said, Mom, you know, we’re gonna be OK. Thank you for, you know, being around for so long. And thank you for being awesome. Grandma. Awesome. Mom and Linda passed away shortly thereafter. A similar situation happened with Dennis. Dennis asked how Linda was doing. She said, Mom is great. I think she might live with us. It’s okay. We’re going to take care of each other. He did not know that her mom had already died, but she said the same thing. Dennis, if he knew that my mom was not going to be here to comfort me, he would have thought Dennis Waas on his stomach as we see a lot of these coded patients kind of in their in their final fight. And she was rubbing his back and talking to him. He was very, very sedated. To be comfortable was very sedated. E laid with him in the bed. And I said, You know, I’m here. I love you. You remember hawks, right? You know, and he said, uh, Andi, I said, I’m gonna let you go now, Okay? He said, Uh huh. And I said, You’re you’re gonna be in peace. Then he said he loved me. They cleaned him up when I put clothes on them and they cut his hair and then I left to him. I think full of life is a great way to describe both of them and Brayden when he said neither of them, ah, week before this happened were prepared to die. But he said co vid was so painful and so relentless that they were both willing t be done In the end, She, in my opinion very bravely and very transparently sent some very intimate photos of his final moments, and she wanted me to share them. She wanted people to know that this is what Kobe it looks like. This is rial. This is what it does to my family. Ah, Week before this, he was doing pushups and dancing. There’s dad’s, you know, that they used to make themselves so better and justify why they’re not gonna wear a mask. But that doesn’t account for what they did. My family doesn’t took 40%. It’s a 40% of our tiny We just have such a small family. She had gone down to Texas to take care of these very sick people. She saw body bags being loaded into the back of trucks. And she said, I came back and told my family, This is serious. We have to take this seriously And they did, and it still got into their home where, where your mask and and no, this is really I wear what to take care of your family. All they had to do was where one when they were around. My family. I’m a nice users that I help all these people, and I couldn’t save my own family as a journalist. Try to remain as neutral as possible, however, especially throughout this pandemic. And through a couple of other tragedies that we’ve covered here in Oklahoma, I realized that we’re still humans first, journalists second After that interview, I was so remarkably upset, I told my husband, I said, I cannot imagine losing you and my mom within a week, and I thought, Does this make me a bad journalist that I’m not able to separate my feelings from this story? And I wrestled with that for a while on I think the short answer is no. I think it makes a great journalist to be able to tell stories that emotionally hit all of us. I think telling stories and connecting with people, sharing their emotion, grieving with them if it’s appropriate, makes a good journalist. It was one of the top three most horrendous stories I’ve ever told, and I’ve been doing this for more than a decade. It’s stuck with me. I had dreams about this family. I still talk to them. I try to check in with him as much as I can. It’ll stick with me for the rest of my life.

Remembering three victims of COVID-19 and those they’ve left behind

Over year after COVID-19 was first detected in the US, over 400,000 Americans have lost their lives to the virus. There are over 400,000 stories to be told. These are a few of them.

Over 400,000 people have lost their lives due to the coronavirus since it was first detected over a year ago in the United States. There are over 400,000 stories to be told. Jason Englert was a new teacher to the Belmond-Klemme school district in Belmond, Iowa. It was just days after he found out he had contracted the virus that his father found him dead at his home. Kindergarten teacher Marne Markwardt felt inspired to do something in Englert’s honor, and with the help of other teachers and students, raised $10,000 for the Jason Englert Scholarship. The scholarship will go to students interested in becoming teachers, like Englert. Even Englert’s family wound up contributing to the scholarship. “I just hope he knows how much he meant to everybody and how much he meant to our kiddos,” Markwardt said.In Oklahoma City, a grieving widow and daughter hopes her family’s tragedy can teach others how dangerous COVID-19 can be. ICU nurse Lizanne Jennings lost her mother and her husband within just days of each other. In her words, their deaths left her and her son completely gutted.”I wear one to take care of your family. All they had to do was wear one when they were around my family. I’m an ICU nurse, I help all these people and I couldn’t save my own family,” Jennings said. You can watch these heartbreaking stories in the video player above. We are living in unprecedented times with COVID-19 spreading across the nation and world, and the stories about how people are coping, battling, and persevering through the pandemic have become more important than ever. In each episode, “Field Notes” brings you a handful of stories about how coronavirus has impacted real people across the United States, and you can hear more about what it’s like to cover the pandemic from the local news teams that are committed to keeping you informed, no matter what.

Over 400,000 people have lost their lives due to the coronavirus since it was first detected over a year ago in the United States. There are over 400,000 stories to be told.

Jason Englert was a new teacher to the Belmond-Klemme school district in Belmond, Iowa. It was just days after he found out he had contracted the virus that his father found him dead at his home. Kindergarten teacher Marne Markwardt felt inspired to do something in Englert’s honor, and with the help of other teachers and students, raised $10,000 for the Jason Englert Scholarship. The scholarship will go to students interested in becoming teachers, like Englert. Even Englert’s family wound up contributing to the scholarship.

“I just hope he knows how much he meant to everybody and how much he meant to our kiddos,” Markwardt said.

In Oklahoma City, a grieving widow and daughter hopes her family’s tragedy can teach others how dangerous COVID-19 can be. ICU nurse Lizanne Jennings lost her mother and her husband within just days of each other. In her words, their deaths left her and her son completely gutted.

“I wear one to take care of your family. All they had to do was wear one when they were around my family. I’m an ICU nurse, I help all these people and I couldn’t save my own family,” Jennings said.

You can watch these heartbreaking stories in the video player above.

We are living in unprecedented times with COVID-19 spreading across the nation and world, and the stories about how people are coping, battling, and persevering through the pandemic have become more important than ever.

In each episode, “Field Notes” brings you a handful of stories about how coronavirus has impacted real people across the United States, and you can hear more about what it’s like to cover the pandemic from the local news teams that are committed to keeping you informed, no matter what.