‘We were cheated.’ Johnny Lee Peoples & Cathy Darlene Peoples, Rowan County, North Carolina couple married 50 years die minutes apart of COVID holding hands.
A North Carolina couple married for over 50 years died of coronavirus only minutes apart holding hands last week after being admitted to hospital on the same day three weeks earlier.
Johnny Lee Peoples, 67, and his wife Cathy ‘Darlene’ Peoples, 65, both of Salisbury, Rowan County started feeling symptoms at the beginning of August, but would not make it to see more than two days of September.
‘They were married 48 years, been together 50, they walked hand in hand for those 50 years,’ their son, Shane Peoples, told via WBTV.
Both Johnny & Cathy Peoples contracted the virus in the beginning of August, with both husband and wife rapidly declining, and then dying, with Cathy dying just days away from retirement.
‘It was mainly the fever and loss of taste,’ Peoples told WBTV. ‘My dad starting showing symptoms two days later. About two weeks later they were both put in the ICU. Everything just went south, everything just got worse.’
‘It’s not a hoax or a joke’
‘The message our family would like to convey is that Covid is real. It’s not a hoax or a joke. Our parents took the proper precautions but tragically still contracted the virus.’
Johnny served in the US Army for over 17 years and retired from the North Carolina Department of Correction a few years ago. Darlene worked at Rowan Family Physicians where she was employed by LabCorp and was supposed to retire on September 1, the day before she and her husband died.
Darlene had a fever on August 1 and had a coronavirus test that week. Shane said that on August 10 she tested negative, which the family believes was a false negative because she later tested positive at the hospital.
Johnny started having symptoms on August 5 and tested positive on August 7. Then on August 11, both were admitted to the Covid-19 unit at their local hospital, Novant Health Rowan Regional Medical Center, because of difficulty breathing due to previous illness.
Darlene had high blood pressure, fibromyalgia, and Type 2 diabetes, while Johnny had pneumonia two years ago that caused some damage to his lungs, Shane said.
‘(On September 1), we were told they had no chance of surviving. Dad could continue to live on the ventilator but would never come off of it. Mom’s organs were failing,’ Shane said.
The next day, they were placed in the same room next to each other. They were taken off the ventilator and died a few minutes apart.
‘We were cheated,’
‘They both had pre-existing conditions. Just keep in mind, these didn’t kill my parents, Covid-19 did,’ Shane said.
Adding, ‘This was the first time for that ICU staff to deal with two family members passing. The hospital staff was amazing through the whole thing.’
The couple is survived by their three children and nine grandchildren.
In their memory, the family is asking for donations to Dr. Vandana Shashi’s Genetic Sequencing Research in the Department of Pediatrics, Duke University School of Medicine since two of their grandchildren have rare unnamed genetic disorders.
‘We were cheated,’ Shane said in a Facebook post after they died.
‘The lives of Mom and Dad were stolen by a virus that many joke about on a daily basis or just straight out believe it’s a hoax of some sort. Both of them took this pandemic seriously and still got sick, still died.’
