An 18-year-old woman from Illinois died just days after contracting the coronavirus, according to her family.
Sarah Simental, who lived in Tinley Park, a suburb of Chicago, died of the virus the day after Christmas, Cook County officials said.
The virus “literally wiped her out,” the woman’s mother, Deborah Simental, told WLS-TV in Chicago.
“No parent should have to watch their son go through this,” she added.
Sarah Simental posing for a Christmas photo with her dog.
(Courtesy of Deborah Simental)
Simental said his daughter experienced the first symptoms last Wednesday and tested positive for COVID-19. She was hospitalized and flown to the University of Chicago Medical Center for treatment, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The woman died on Sunday of acute hypoxic respiratory failure and non-traumatic brain hemorrhages caused by the infection, the county coroner’s office said.
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“She was a healthy young woman who had just turned 18 in November and had the world in her hands,” her mother told the Tribune.
She said her daughter was “an example that this can happen to younger, healthier people. … This is real”.
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Sarah’s funeral was scheduled for Wednesday at Lawn Funeral Home in Orland Park, Illinois, according to her obituary.