Rushia Johnson Stephens, DeKalb County courthouse worker dies from coronavirus after the healthy 65 year old Georgia woman was initially denied hospital treatment.
A ’healthy’ 65-year-old Georgia woman has died from novel coronavirus after initially being turned away from hospital, according to a report.
Rushia Johnson Stephens, a former DeKalb County music teacher, started feeling sick around March 2 but was sent home from the hospital,WAGA reports.
Stephens who now worked at the DeKalb County courthouse in the clerk’s office had last worked March 12.
Over the next few weeks, Stephens’ health continued to deteriorate -only for her to collapse at her home last Thursday, March 19.
‘My brother-in-law called me, her husband, and said, ‘Hey we are going to rush her to the hospital because she just passed out,” her brother Kenyatta Johnson told via WAGA. ‘And I was like, ‘Oh my goodness.”
He said that he was relieved his sister might finally receive the treatment she needed — only to receive another call two hours later.
‘I received a call from her daughter saying, ‘My momma is dead,’ and it blew us away,” Johnson told the outlet.
Family remains bewildered by healthy and active woman’s abrupt death:
A subsequent autopsy confirmed that Rushia having contracted COVID-19.
‘This thing is real. It has hit home. I lost my sister. This is a pain that is so hard for me right now,’ Johnson said.
Johnson said Rushia’s death ‘was so shocking,’ because she did not have any underlying health conditions.
Johnson said his wife, a mother and grandmother had ‘always been active and did not start feeling sick until March 2 or 3. ‘
The DeKalb County court officials have since out letters to employees notifying them of Rushia’s passing and mandated they get testing.
Georgia has reported 1247 known cases and 40 deaths with overall reports of 65,600 cases in the US and 931 deaths, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University. Last night saw an additional 151 deaths as the rate of infection continues to rise exponentially.
