SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) – During a KUTV study of the side effects of COVID-19 vaccines and where to report them, we found four reported deaths filed by Utah families and their caregivers with the Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System of the CDC.
One case stood out, a 39-year-old single mother from Ogden who died four days after her second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Her family, now awaiting an autopsy, held a celebration of life for her this past weekend.
Kassidi Kurill was most likely healthy, happy and “had more energy” than just about everyone around her. Her family told 2News that she had no known health problems or pre-existing conditions.
Alfred Hawley, a retired fighter pilot at Hill Air Force Base, is a soldier who has known risks and losses all his life. He has done everything he can – until now.
An hour before his daughter’s life celebration last Saturday, he sat down to talk about his little daughter, the one who always wore makeup to cover the freckles he loved so much.
“I’m in a state in my life where I’m okay with that (emotion),” he said, wiping a tear from his cheek; not the first and not the last.
“She was the one who promised to take care of me.”
The death of his youngest daughter came out of nowhere in a year when this family has already suffered unimaginable grief, with three funerals for Kurill in the past 370 days.
Four days after Kurill’s second dose of COVID-19 vaccine, she was gone – dead before most of her family could say goodbye.
Hawley woke up that Thursday morning when his daughter asked for help.
“She came in early and said her heart was beating and she felt she needed to go to the emergency room,” Hawley said.
Kurill and her 9-year-old daughter Emilia lived with her parents. They were one family under the same roof since Emilia was born. Mom and dad, grandma and grandpa always close by when needed.
Hawley, now retired, spent a lot of time with his girls. Kurill, he said, “got sick right away, got pain at the injection site, then got sick, started complaining that she drank a lot of fluids but couldn’t urinate, and felt a little better the next day.”
It was her second shot; the first came with a sore arm but no real side effects or problems. Kurill was the first in the family to receive the vaccine. She was a surgical technician for several local plastic surgeons, and the vaccine was part of her job. She stepped forward without hesitation to take the picture, her family said.
She was absolutely fine with getting it. She even said to us, “It’s fine, you should all get it.” ”
Kurill’s older sister Kristin, often mistaken for her twin brother, lives in Arizona. The distance didn’t matter much, they visited often and talked on the phone every day.
The day her sister got the second COVID-19 shot was a normal day of their talks, Kristin said.
‘They had gone shopping. She was fine, but didn’t start feeling very well that night, ”she said.
Kristin said they weren’t worried about her sister because “everyone at work had flu-like symptoms, so we thought that was normal.”
Kurill received the second injection on February 1. While she was in bed all day Tuesday and Wednesday, it wasn’t until Thursday morning that she knew something was wrong. She woke up early, got ready, and asked her father to take her to the local emergency room, where they arrived at 7am.
As soon as they entered the door, Kurill vomited. Minutes later, questions arose about what made her so sick.
Her father recalls doctors asking question after question, “Is there an explanation?”
Hawley said he told them Kurill had just had her second chance.
“They took a blood test and immediately came back and said she was very sick and her liver was not functioning,” Hawley said.
Kristin, still in Arizona, knew her sister had gone to the hospital, but the speed of what happened was “so unexpected.” She thought her sister would get an IV of fluids and be home in an hour.
Hawley, in the ER with his daughter, knew they wouldn’t be going home anytime soon.
“It was a total shock, and I was even afraid to tell my wife,” he said. It was a phone call he didn’t want to make.
Kurill was flown to the Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, a trauma center where they could perform transplants if needed. Her liver failed and a transplant, doctors believed, was her best option for survival.
Then Kristin got the call that her sister was put through. She jumped on the first flight to Utah, but when she landed, she was not allowed in the hospital due to COVID-19 protocols. She waited with Kurill’s daughter Emilia, hoping for a miracle.
Both of Kurill’s parents volunteered to donate part of their liver. They knew that if they weren’t a match, they could be part of an exchange where someone else who was a match could help their daughter.
They never had the opportunity to present the life-saving gift. Doctors did everything they could to get Kurill stable, but nothing seemed to work. Hawley said his daughter’s liver, kidneys, and heart stopped.
Hawley, who was with his daughter when she died, said it made no sense.
She died, he said, 30 hours after arriving in the emergency room.
An autopsy was recommended by doctors and the family agreed. Kurill’s body was taken to the Utah State Medical Examiner in Taylorsville, where a full autopsy was performed.
The State Medical Examiner’s office cannot comment on the matter due to privacy laws, but spoke to 2News about when an autopsy would provide answers to a family who reported a death from vaccination.
Dr. Erik Christensen, Utah’s Chief Medical Examiner, said proving vaccine damage as a cause of death is almost never a occurrence.
Did the vaccine cause this? I think that’s very difficult to prove at autopsy, ”he said.
Christensen can think of only one case where you would see a vaccine as the cause of death on an official autopsy report, and that would be in an instant case of anaphylaxis – one where a person received the vaccine and died almost immediately, he said.
“Otherwise, it would be difficult for us to say definitively that this is the vaccine.”
A more likely result is a lack of answers or an ‘incomplete autopsy’.
An autopsy, he said, can provide answers to a family if no illness or red flags are found. As Christensen explained, “that we don’t see a competing cause of death.” That lack of answers can help them understand if the vaccine was a possible cause.
An autopsy can also identify a cause of death that the family was not aware of, where doctors find undiagnosed pneumonia, cancer, or an unknown heart condition. Christensen said there are many people – even young people – walking around with major health problems that they just don’t know about.
According to her family, Kurill had no known medical conditions. Her past medical records will likely be used in her death investigation, which can take up to three months, depending on what the initial reports and toxicology reports show.
Kurill’s family hopes they will have answers, but they know the reality that they may never know for sure what their daughter and sister’s lives have required.
Kristin said looking back, her sister “was fine the day she got the injection and then everything changed.”
Her father agreed. He said Kurill was “healthy and good – then she took the shot.” He points to “Occam’s Razor, where the simplest answer is probably correct.”
Until he got other data, Hawley said he “must believe there was something with the shot.”
Kurill’s death will leave a great void. Her 9-year-old daughter continues to live with her grandparents. The young girl’s father, a civil servant and member of the National Guard, travels for work and has taken several trips abroad.
Her family has set up a Memorial Account in the name of Kassidi Kurill:
You can donate to America First Credit Union
- PO Box 9199, Ogden Ut 84409
- Routing # AFCU 324377516
- Account # 9119439
A GoFundMe has also been set up for Emelia.
Emilia, or ‘Millie’ as her family calls her, was the one who wanted to tell her mother’s story. She has been forced to grow up a lot in the four weeks since her mother’s death. She watched her grandfather decide to get his second dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
“Millie begged me not to,” Hawley said. It was not an easy decision. He had had his first injection not long after his daughter.
“There is always risk,” he said.
For him, “as a 69-year-old diabetic, it made sense to take the second injection and get 95% immunity.” After a long pause, he said, “if you’re young, it might not make sense.” Ultimately, “you will have to make your own decision.”
In Utah, Kurill is just one of four reported deaths possibly related to the vaccine. Three other reported deaths are in Utah, all in their eighties. With the information publicly available, it doesn’t appear that autopsies have been ordered in their business.
Christensen, the medical examiner, notes that deaths from vaccines are possible and do happen.
“Just about any vaccine or whatever you do treat someone, if you inject something, it can have a negative result. I am sure that VAERS can verify that other vaccines have resulted in death, ”said Christensen.
The deaths, he said, are “vanishingly rare compared to the lives they save.”
Currently, 1,637 families or caregivers across the country have reported deaths that they believe may be related to the VAERS vaccine.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently says no deaths are attributed to COVID-19 vaccines:
More than 92 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from December 14, 2020 through March 8, 2021. During this time, VAERS received 1,637 reports of death (0.0018%) among people who received a COVID-19. received. vaccine. CDC and FDA physicians review each death case report as soon as notified, and CDC requests medical records to further review reports. A review of available clinical information, including death certificates, autopsy and medical records, did not reveal any evidence that vaccination contributed to patient death. CDC and FDA will continue to investigate reports of adverse events, including deaths, reported to VAERS, the CDC reported on its website.
2News will contact Kurill’s family when the autopsy report is complete. In the state of Utah, those reports are not public and can only be viewed if the family chooses to share that information. The medical examiner was unable to say whether the autopsy would be automatically forwarded to the CDC and the FDA because of HIPPA.
Copyright 2021 KUTV. All rights reserved.