Sarah Simental had just celebrated her 18th birthday last month and was looking forward to graduating from high school next spring, when COVID-19 suddenly passed away earlier this week, just days after complaining of headaches and congestion.
Simental, of Tinley Park, Illinois, lost her battle with the virus on Sunday, a week after she was diagnosed.
Parents Deborah and Donald Simental said Sarah was an otherwise healthy teen with no underlying medical condition before the coronavirus wreaked havoc on her body.
Sarah Simental, 18, died of COVID-19 a day after Christmas, and less than a week after testing positive for the virus in a Chicago suburb
A few days before Christmas, the healthy high school complained to her parents, Donald (left) and Deborah (right), of congestion and mild headaches, which they attributed to a cold.
“She went into cardiac arrest, she had a brain haemorrhage, it worsened her kidneys, it just kept eating her,” Deborah told WLS-TV. No parent should ever see their child go through that. No one.’
According to the married mother-of-two from the Chicago suburbs, it all started a few days before Christmas, when Sarah first complained of mild cold-like symptoms.
Deborah Simental said the virus ‘ate’ her healthy daughter within days
But the high school student’s condition quickly deteriorated, and her mother took her for a COVID test on December 19, which came back positive the next day.
Over the next three days, Sarah continued to add new and increasingly worrisome symptoms, including vomiting, chills, and body aches.
Her parents rushed Sarah to Silver Cross Hospital two days before Christmas, but her health continued to deteriorate rapidly and she was eventually taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center by airlift, according to reports from the Chicago Tribune.
‘I know she fought because one of the last times I could talk to her on the phone, they took her from the regular room to the ICU and she said,’ It’s going to be fine, Mom, ‘and that was the last, ”Deborah recalled.
Despite the doctors’ best efforts to save her, Sarah died on December 26, less than a week after her COVID diagnosis.
Sarah tested positive for the virus on December 20. Three days later she was taken to a local hospital and then an airlift to the University of Chicago Medical Center
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that the high school student died of acute hypoxic respiratory failure due to COVID-19 infection, with non-traumatic brain bleeding as a contributing factor.
Sarah’s parents said their daughter spent much of her time at home with her family and her dog, Bailey, and they don’t know where she contracted the virus.
Her 20-year-old brother, Matthew, had contracted mild disease in August and had recovered.
The Simentals said they have decided to share their daughter’s story to remind the public that COVID-19 doesn’t just affect the elderly or those with underlying health conditions.
“Sarah is an example that it can happen to the youngest and healthiest people,” said Deborah.
Despite the doctors’ best efforts, Sarah suffered respiratory failure and a brain haemorrhage, which resulted in her death on December 26
Sarah’s older brother, Matthew, 20 (left), caught COVID in August but recovered
Three days after Sarah’s death, Luke Letlow, Louisiana’s new Republican Congressman who was just days away from being sworn in, succumbed to COVID. He was 41 years old.
Doctors said the married father of two had no underlying health problems that would have put him at greater risk for the disease.
The coronavirus outbreak has so far claimed more than 338,000 lives in the US and 1.8 million worldwide.
Sarah was a senior at Lincoln-Way East High School and volunteered with Tinley Park’s PAWS, a pet rescue organization.
She leaves behind her parents, brother and grandparents.
Sarah’s funeral is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in Orland Park, Illinois.