In December 2021, Laurie and her husband were recovering from COVID at home. Jim was a football coach and in otherwise good physical condition. He and Laurie were having a good day during their recovery, but later that evening Jim experienced a severe bout of coughing. Laurie and Jim decided to go to the hospital but because of their vaccine status—neither Laurie or Jim were vaccinated—Laurie was told to leave the ER and Jim was isolated in a room, unattended for 3 hours. He wasn't even brought water.
Jim was eventually admitted to the hospital and given what he told was a "COVID drug." He and Laurie later learned that it was Remdesivir. There was no informed consent given to Jim and Laurie found the hospital staff to be unreachable and unwilling to communicate. She was not allowed in the hospital room and when she requested to speak to them via her husband's cell phone, they would take away his phone and tell Laurie she was keeping him from resting. They requested an advocate, but were never given one.
Days later, Jim was moved into the ICU. Before that happened, he called Laurie to say that someone had put something in his IV at 3:00 AM and that is when he began to feel worse. The situation for Jim got worse in the ICU; the hospital team was not feeding him and layering on more and more dangerous medications. Next, Jim's kidneys began to fail. The hospital had also blown out his lungs using a ventilator. Unfortunately, Jim did not make it back home and he passed away in the hospital.
Laurie believes that the lack of empathy, reckless treatments and abandonment of care leading to Jim's death was directly related to Jim's vaccine status.
It is important to note the World Health Organization publicly stated that Remdesivir should NOT be used as treatment for hospitalized COVID-19 patients one month after the Food and Drug Administration approved the same drug to treat patients aged 12 and over.
Laurie shared her husband's story on the Children's Health Defense (CHD) VAX-unVAX Bus in collaboration with the Michigan chapter of CHD and Michigan for Vaccine Choice (MVC).