ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — Amanda Nolasco says her husband, Jonathan, who had no underlying health conditions, died of COVID-19 after a month-long battle with the virus.
Jonathan was 37-years-old.
“His lungs, as the doctor explained to me, they’re like a sponge. His were like a brick. There was no going back from that. There was no repairing his lungs at that point,” Amanda said Thursday.
“I was scared to leave (the hospital) because I just never knew what was going to happen when I would leave,” she said.
Amanda said the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic felt far away from the couple, until it wasn’t.
“You don’t think it’s that big of a deal. Honestly, I’m not gonna lie. That’s kinda how we were, I’m gonna be honest, me and him, that’s kinda what we were like. I just never thought this would happen,” she said, tearfully.
Doctors at UW Health SwedishAmerican are warning the public after an increase of cases are exhausting their resources.
“We have a shortage of ventilators. We have a shortage of beds, nursing staff, nursing aids, phlebotomists, technicians, respiratory therapists, physicians…all of us. The whole healthcare system is burning out,” one doctor said at a press conference earlier today.
The surge in COVID-19 cases is forcing doctors to work overtime, and makes it harder for them to care for non-COVID patients, they said.
“It just makes it so challenging, to do everything with such limited resources that are being consumed at such a great rate by the patients that are really sick with COVID,” they said.
Both the healthcare system and Amanda are asking others to take the virus more seriously.
“It is extremely important for our community to come help us. Get vaccinated. Help us. Help yourselves,” they said.
Amanda added, “It is serious. It is real. It’s not something to mess around with, because it’s just very dangerous. And it’s real. It’s definitely real.”
A GoFundMe has been set up to help Johnathan’s family cover funeral and medical expenses.
Local doctors say they are seeing younger people being hospitalized with serious COVID-19 symptoms.