Woman Says Goodbye To Her Mom Dying From Coronavirus Over FaceTime

The families of dying coronavirus patients are being forced to rely on FaceTime and the kindness of medical staff to say their final goodbyes, after being banned from seeing their loved ones in person.
Quarantine rules set up by hospitals desperate to stop the spread of the disease mean families have to use video calls to speak to their sick relatives.
King County Sheriff's Major Michelle Bennett saw her mother, Carolann Gann, for the last time on FaceTime as the 75-year-old was slipping away at Swedish Issaquah Hospital in Washington state last Thursday.
Retired nurse and mother of five Gann had tested positive for COVID-19 just a week earlier at Issaquah Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, [ ]reported.
'Not being able to be there and hold my mom's hand, rub her head, tell her the things I wanted to say her. It was such a helpless feeling,' Bennett told [ ]Brooke Baldwin on Monday, reducing the veteran cable news anchor to tears.  
FaceTime farewell: King County Sheriff's Major Michelle Bennett (pictured left with her mother) got to say goodbye to her coronavirus-stricken mother, Carolann Gann, 75, via FaceTime on Thursday (right) thanks to the kindness of a hospital nurse 
Gann contracted the deadly virus a little more than a week ago while living at Issaquah Nursing and Rehabiliation in Washington state 
Hero: Bennett said a nurse at Swedish Issaquah Hospital (pictured) reached out to her on Thursday to say her mother was dying and offered to give the patient her phone so she could speak to her daughter on FaceTime one last time 

[ ]  Bennett said Tatiana, a nurse looking after her mother at the hospital, noticed that Gann's breathing was becoming more labored, so she contacted the daughter to say her mother was dying, and to give her the chance to say a final goodbye to her via FaceTime on her own personal phone. 
'I'm going to put the phone up to her face so you can tell her you love her and say your goodbyes,' Bennett says the nurse told her. 'She will not be alone, we will stay with her till the end.'
Bennett said she told her mother she loved her, offered her forgiveness for past mistakes, momfuture.pageride.com said she was going to miss her and told her it was OK for her to pass on now. 
The daughter recounted that as nurse Tatiana took away the phone from her mother, she could see tears streaming down her mask. 
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No one from Gann's family  (pictured) was there at the end because of quarantine restrictions, but her nurse promised to stay with her until the end 
Bennett, a veteran law enforcement official, said she is eternally grateful to the nursing staff for giving her the opportunity to say goodbye to her mother 
An hour later, Carolann Gann breathed her last and passed away. 
'I think she needed to hear that. I think she was holding on until we were able to say, "It's OK to go,"' Bennett said.  
Bennett said the most important thing for her was that her mother, herself a retired nurse of 38 years, did not die alone thanks to the kindness of compassionate hospital staff risking their lives. 

'I cannot thank them enough,' said Bennett. 'I cannot imagine not having had the opportunity to  say goodbye, to say, "You can pass," to say "I forgive you" and 'I love you."'
By Monday night, coronavirus had claimed more lives in the US than the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. As of Tuesday evening, there were 181,989 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 3,699 deaths nationwide. 
Washington state, where Carolann Gann died last week, is one of the major US hotspots of the virus, with 5,192 cases and 219 deaths. 
As of Tuesday evening, there were 181,989 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, including 5,704 in Florida, and 3,699 deaths nationwide


Vancouver, Washington, residents Merle and Dee Tofte, who have been married for 52 years, contracted the virus in early March, reported [ ]
Dee, a Parkinson's disease patient who had just turned 85 in February, fell ill first. Her 86-year-old husband came down with fever, chills and a bad cough - all textbook symptoms of the novel coronavirus - a few days later.
By March 11, both were at the hospital and tested positive for COVID-19.
The couple's condition rapidly deteriorated and on March 16 their five grown children and four grandchildren were told that Merle and Dee had just hours to live.
Unable to be with their dying loved ones in person due to quarantine rules, the family members called Dee and Merle on FaceTime to bid farewell.
Two granddaughters even serenaded the dying couple with their favorite song, Doris Day's classic 'A Bushel and Peck.'
Later that day, Dee and Merle passed away a few hours apart, becoming the first two coronavirus fatalities in the county.
The couple were laid to rest in matching pajamas sets that they received as gifts from family members during Dee's birthday celebration on February 28.
No family members were allowed to attend their twin burials, and there was no funeral ceremony because of a governor's order banning large gatherings to curb the spread of the virus.
Dee Tofte, 85, and her husband of 52 years, Merle Toft, 86, died within hours of one another in a Washington state hospital just days after testing positive for COVID-19. Their family members said goodbye to the couple on FaceTime 
In a different part of the hard-hit Washington state, Sundee Rutter, 42, a breast cancer survivor and mother of six, succumbed to the coronavirus after saying goodbye to her loved ones via walkie-talkie. 
She was first admitted to Providence Regional Medical Center, the hospital which treated the first known case of COVID-19, on March 3, according to BuzzFeed News.
That day, she and her son, Elijah Ross-Rutter, 20, spent eight hours in a sealed room while she was treated by hospital staff wearing full protective suits.
'They don't even want to touch my mom,' Elijah, who was allowed to see his mother with a face mask on, recalled.
That same day, she was sent home.
'She thought she had the flu, probably,' Ross-Rutter said.
Four days later, Rutter and her son returned to the hospital. While Ross-Rutter waited in the visiting area, his mother was examined by doctors.
A few hours later, Ross-Rutter was told that his mother was suffering from pneumonia and that she would be kept at the hospital overnight.
The next day, Rutter tested positive for coronavirus.
'For a while, she was able to text,' Ross-Rutter said. On March 12, his mother texted him that she was feeling 'much better.'
But her text messages would eventually be limited to just emojis.
'She was sending me hearts on the messages but she wasn't replying,' Ross-Rutter said.
On March 16, the family received a phone call from a doctor telling them they should come to the hospital.
Ross-Rutter, his five siblings, and his mother's sister watched from a small glass window as Rutter lay in her bed.
Sundee Rutter, 42, a breast cancer survivor from Washington state, died on March 16 after saying goodbye to her family via a walkie-talkie. She is pictured on the right with her son Elijah Ross-Rutter
Rutter is seen above with her six children in this undated file photo. She would have turned 43 years old in August
As Rutter was moment away from death, her 20-year-old son assured her that her children would be looked after.
The children said goodbye to their mother using a hand-held radio whose receiver was propped next to her pillow.
'I told her I love her ... she shouldn't worry about the kids,' Ross-Rutter said.
The most difficult part was not being able to be in the same room with his mother during her final moments.
'Like, I'm about to lose my best friend and she can't even hear me,' Ross-Rutter said. 
In San Jose, California, Mike Carter and his wife were struggling to come to terms with the sudden loss of his mother, 81-year-old Pat Carter, who lost her battle against the coronations last Monday.
Like in most other cases, the family were barred from going near the patient and had to rely on technology to convey to the dying woman their final message of love.
Pat Carter, 81, lost her battle against the coronavirus in San Francisco last Monday. The mom-of-two succumbed to the virus just four days after being diagnosed and coming down with pneumonia 
Mike Carter and his wife got to say goodbye to Pat via FaceTime with the help of one of the nurses caring for his mother in her dy[ ][ ]first reported, relatives told Sheehan they loved him and thanked him for being a great, husband, father and grandfather.
His wife, Jill, who had joined him on the cruise to Italy, Spain and France, also tested positive for COVID-19, but she is home and is said to be doing better now.
According to Tom's grown son, Kevin Sheehan, his father and stepmother were not told about the virus spreading on board the ship by the time the vessel reached Puerto Rico, where an elderly Italian couple were taken from the boat and rushed to a local hospital where both tested positive for the virus. The female patient has since died.
'If the ship had told everyone what was going on, my dad and stepmom would have gotten off in Puerto Rico and flown home,' said Kevin. 'But they didn't tell them. So they stayed on the ship.'
In the days that followed, the ship continued on its voyage without making any stops, and Sheehan, who had a pre-existing respiratory condition, began having trouble breathing.
'We think at that point my father had already been exposed,' his son said. 'He thought his bronchitis was coming back. We realize now the virus had got him.'
When the Costa Luminosa docked in Marseilles, France, about half of the 75 passengers who were tested were found to have the coronavirus.
Tom Sheehan died at a Florida hospital on a ventilator. His family could not be there in person to say goodbye 
The American and Canadian travelers, including Sheehan, his wife and a couple they were traveling with, were put on a plane and flown to Atlanta, the home of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but Kevin Sheehan said agency officials only took their temperature and asked them a few basic questions before allowing everyone from the flight to enter the crowded terminal.
On March 20, Tom and Jill Sheehan arrived back in Sarasota sick and bedraggled.
The next time, they went to the hospital and tested positive for the coronavirus. By then, Tom's breathing was labored and he had lost 20lbs.
'He was terrified,' his son said. 'In one of his lasts texts to my sister, he said "if I caught this virus I'm dead." And he was right.'
On Friday, a nurse helped the family speak to Tom one last time on speakerphone. Kevin said he hoped his dying father, who was hooked up to a ventilator and given sedatives, could hear them in his final moments of life. 




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Read more:

[ A woman got to say goodbye to her mother over FaceTime before she died thanks to a nurse at this Washington hospital - CNN]
[ ‘She was not alone': Nurse reassures family in loved one's final moments]
[ - The Washington Post]
[ He caught COVID-19 on a cruise ship. His family had to say goodbye over speakerphone]
[ San Jose man lost 81-year-old mom to COVID-19, forced to say goodbye via FaceTime | abc7news.com]



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