A Florida mother said two of her adult children died of COVID-19 within 11 days of each other.
Monete Hicks’ son Byron and daughter Mychaela, of Lauderhill, had health issues but were fine and “basically homebound,” she said. Then they took a trip to Orlando just before they became sick, Hicks said.
Byron, 20, had trouble breathing when he woke up one Saturday in late June. Paramedics rushed him to the hospital, but about noon, “I lost my baby,” Hicks said in an interview with CNN’s Brianna Keilar.
Mychaela, 23, started feeling ill the following Tuesday and insisted her mother take her to the hospital, she said.
“‘Mama, just crank up the car, let’s go,'” Hicks said her daughter insisted, even though she didn’t like hospitals.
“She went in with a headache, fever,” Hicks said. It went from not breathing, got worse “She lost a kidney, her liver began to fail. And it just went one after another, one after another.”
Her children “are my heart and will always be my heart,” Hicks said.
Byron was a gamer who loved his games and his family, his cousin, Darisha Scott, said. He was “very funny, just the goofball of the family.”
Mychaela “was the light of the family, her smile could light up a room,” Scott said.
Hicks and Scott are urging other people to take the virus seriously.
“All I can say is, take this, take this (virus) very seriously, because it’s real, it’s out there,” Hicks said.
“It’s not a joke. It’s not a game, it’s not something that the government … made up,” Scott said.
Wear a mask, wash your hands, keep your distance and “don’t come out unless you really, really got to, especially here in Florida,” she said.
“Nobody should have to feel the pain, my auntie shouldn’t have to feel this pain.”