A five-year-old girl has died after testing positive for the COVID-19 virus. Skylar Herbert of Detroit, Michigan, passed away on Sunday, April 19, following three weeks of hospitalization for the sickness.
How It Happened
Herbert was first taken to the doctor by her parents on March 23, after she complained of intense headaches. After testing positive for strep throat and being sent home, she was re-admitted to the emergency room (ER) when the headaches got worse. During that visit, she tested positive for the coronavirus.
Her conditioned seemed to improve and she was sent home once more. However, her father, firefighter Ebbie Herbert, started showing symptoms of COVID-19, and the family returned to the ER. There, Skylar’s condition worsened.
“Out of nowhere, Skylar began complaining about her head hurting again and then she just threw up,” her mother, Police Officer LaVondria Herbert, told The Detroit News.
Complications from COVID-19 were found to have caused a form of meningitis that was causing Skylar’s brain to swell, and she was re-admitted to the hospital. On April 3, doctors placed her on a ventilator. However, by April 19 her condition had drastically deteriorated.
“We decided to take her off the ventilator today because her improvement had stopped,” Skylar’s mother said. “The doctors told us that it was possible she was brain dead, and we basically just knew she wasn’t coming back to us.”
A Wake-Up Call?
The tragic loss has led LaVondria and Ebbie Herbert to speak in support of state public health restrictions for COVID-19 that have caused controversy with some in Michigan, NBC News said.
“When you’re dealing with a virus like this, we’re learning even now,” Ebbie told the outlet. “It doesn’t care what color you are. It doesn’t care about your nationality. It doesn’t care about your political preference. It’s just a monster that is trying to destroy whatever is in its way.”
In a statement to People, Beaumont Health, the facility that treated Skylar, memorialized the young girl. “The loss of a child, at any time, under any circumstances, is a tragedy. We are heartbroken that COVID-19 has taken the life of a child,” they said. “We extend our deepest sympathy to Skylar’s family and all others who have lost a loved one to this virus.”
Meanwhile, LaVondria Herbert remembers her daughter as an energetic, loving spirit. “She was the type of girl that would just run up to you and jump in your arms and hug you,” she said, per People. “It didn’t matter what she was doing, she would stop what she was doing and tell me she loved me like 20 times a day.”
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