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 took her life earlier this week, just days after she complained of headaches and congestion .
Simental, from Tinley Park, Illinois, lost the battle with the virus on Sunday, a week after receiving the diagnosis.
Parents Deborah and Donald Simental said Sarah was a healthy teenager with no underlying medical conditions before the coronavirus wreaked havoc on her body.
Sarah Simental, 18, died of COVID-19 the day after Christmas and less than a week after the test was positive for the virus in the suburb of Chicago
A few days before Christmas, the healthy high school veteran complained to her parents, Donald (left) and Deborah (right), about congestion and mild headaches, which they attributed to a cold.
“She had a cardiac arrest, had a brain bleed, was deteriorating her kidneys, it consumed her,” Deborah told WLS-TV. ‘No parent should have to watch their son go through this. No one.’
According to the married mother of two in the Chicago suburbs, it all started a few days before Christmas, when Sarah first complained of symptoms similar to a cold.
Deborah Simental said the virus ‘ate’ her daughter healthy in a matter of days
But the condition of the high school student worsened rapidly and her mother took her to take a COVID test on December 19, which was positive the next day.
For the next three days, Sarah continued to add new and increasingly worrying 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 ended up being flown to the University of Chicago Medical Center, according to a report by the Chicago Tribune.
‘I know she fought because one of the last times I was able to talk to her on the phone, they were taking her from the normal room to the ICU and she said,’ I’m going to be fine, mom ‘, and that was the last thing,’ Deborah remembered.
Despite doctors’ efforts to save her, Sarah died on December 26, less than a week after her diagnosis of COVID.
Sarah tested positive for the virus on December 20. She was taken to a local hospital three days later and then flown 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 the COVID-19 infection, with non-traumatic brain hemorrhage as a contributing factor.
Sarah’s parents said their daughter spent a lot of time at home with her family and her dog, Bailey, and they don’t know where she got the virus.
Her 20-year-old brother Matthew contracted a mild case of the disease in August and recovered.
The Simentals said they decided to share their daughter’s story to remind the public that COVID-19 doesn’t just affect the elderly or people with underlying health problems.
“Sarah is an example that this can happen to younger, healthier people,” said Deborah.
Despite doctors’ efforts, Sarah had respiratory failure and brain bleeding, resulting in her death on December 26
Sarah’s older brother Matthew, 20 (left), took COVID in August, but recovered
Three days after Sarah’s death, Luke Letlow, the new Republican congressman from Louisiana who was just days away from office, succumbed to COVID. He was 41 years old.
Doctors said her husband, the father of two, had no health problems that would put him at greater risk of contracting the disease.
The coronavirus outbreak has claimed more than 338,000 lives in the United States and 1.8 million worldwide.
Sarah was a senior at Lincoln-Way East High School and volunteered at PAWS in Tinley Park, a pet rescue organization.
She left her parents, brother and grandparents.
Sarah’s funeral is scheduled to take place on Wednesday afternoon in Orland Park, Illinois.