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Las Vegas dad of 5 dies of COVID-19 final text: I should have gotten vaccine

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Michael Freedy Las Vegas COVID-19 death.
Michael Freedy Las Vegas COVID-19 death. Father of 5 pictured with fiancee, Jessica du Preez.
Michael Freedy Las Vegas COVID-19 death
Michael Freedy Las Vegas COVID-19 death.

Michael Freedy Las Vegas dad of 5 dies of COVID-19 final text to his fiancee, Jessica du Preez, ‘I should have gotten vaccine,’ before dying of virus.

‘I should have gotten the damn vaccine’. These are the words a Las Vegas father of five dying of COVID-19 texted his fiancée in a final text, before fatally succumbing to the deadly virus. 

Michael Freedy, 39, had gone on vacation with fiancée Jessica du Preez and their children, ages 17, 10, 7, 6 and 17 months, in mid-July, KVVU reported

A short time after their return, Freedy went to the hospital with a painful skin rash.

While there, he ended up testing positive for COVID-19. 

He went home to try to ride out the illness in isolation, but his symptoms became more and more severe. 

‘Please keep fighting. Don’t give up.’

‘Early Tuesday morning, I would say around 3, 4 o’clock in the morning, he wakes me up panicking,’ du Preez told KVUU. ‘He’s like, ‘I can’t breathe. I know something is wrong.’’

Freedy couldn’t even manage to stand, so the couple went back to the hospital.

He was admitted with pneumonia in both lungs and moved to another hospital, where du Preez was allowed to see him. 

‘I just kept telling him, ‘You are going to get through this, you’ve got to come home to us,’’ she said. 

Instead, Freedy’s condition deteriorated, and the man was transferred to the ICU.

‘I was able to call before they took him in, and he sat on the phone,’ du Preez said. ‘And I was able to hear him. I was like, ‘Please keep fighting. Don’t give up.’ And he’s like, ‘I’m trying to fight, but they are going to intubate me and put me under.’’

At one point, Freedy sent du Preez a text from the hospital. 

Michael Freedy Las Vegas COVID-19 death.
Michael Freedy Las Vegas COVID-19 death.

‘Oh my [expletive] God. This is terrible,’ he wrote, according to KLAS. ‘I should have gotten the damn vaccine.’

Freedy died at the hospital Thursday morning with du Preez by his side. 

‘I was at the hospital visiting Mike and telling him all about our kids’ day and how everyone was pulling for him,’ du Preez posted on a GoFundMe page. ‘His numbers crashed and they were not able to bring them back up.’

‘The love of my life, my rock, my everything. The father to my babies, is no longer with us. I don’t know what to do.’

Freedy was not vaccinated — though his fiancée said the couple had planned on becoming so eventually.

‘We were just holding off, and now to think that if we just had gotten the shot a week before or a month before when one of our jobs had a vaccination thing, he could still be here,’ she told media.

Las Vegas dad of 5 dies of COVID-19 final text
Michael Freedy Las Vegas COVID-19 death.

Pandemic of the unvaccinated

‘We wanted to wait just one year from the release to see what effects people had, but there was never any intention to not get it,’ she added. 

Du Preez, who said she will always regret the decision, is now vaccinated along with the couple’s oldest child. 

She said that even if the vaccine had prevented ‘a little bit’ of her fiance’s symptoms, ‘it could have stopped the coronavirus from progressing so fast.’

‘I expected to get 30 more years with him,’ du Preez said. ‘I didn’t expect him to be gone.’

About 40% of people over the age of 18 in the US have not been vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number one reason adults cite for not getting the COVID-19 vaccine is wanting to ‘wait and see’ if the vaccine has any long-term side effects before receiving the shot, according to KFF’s COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor.

The US is averaging almost 62,000 new Covid-19 infections a day, and the vast majority of those hospitalised and dying have not been vaccinated. Nationwide 49.8% of Americans are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

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