12-year-old girl with a ventilator in the MUSC ICU for COVID-19

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COLLETON COUNTY, SC (WCSC) – A 12-year-old boy from Walterboro is currently on a ventilator at MUSC’s Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital in downtown Charleston fighting COVID-19.

Amari Goodwin’s mother, Misty, said her daughter’s symptoms progressed rapidly in early August. The boy could not breathe, had a fever of 104 degrees and was vomiting.

When Misty brought her daughter to urgent care, she was diagnosed with COVID-19, pneumonia and RSV.

“Once he started coughing up blood in his phlegm, I felt like it wasn’t enough,” he said. “That’s when we got to the hospital.”

Seeing her daughter fighting day and night since August 5 to fight the virus has been a living nightmare for Misty. She said Amari was admitted to the ICU at the MUSC on August 11th.

“You’re right there looking at her,” he said. “Nothing can be done to fix it. And then I try to balance all my kids. No one can come to see her. It’s just me, her and the machines. “

Dr. Elizabeth Mack with MUSC said there are more patients like Amari coming in through the doors. Since Wednesday, he said MUSC has had a total of 180 people under the age of 21 hospitalized by COVID since the start of the pandemic.

“[That] has been evenly divided for 2020 and 2021, ”he said.“ However, 20 per cent of our 2021 numbers have been in August and we are not done with August. So if that gives you an indication of how quickly we’ve seen it increase over the last month or so. And keep in mind that not all children hospitalized for COVID or MIS-C have been vaccinated. “

Misty said Amari is progressing slowly. Doctors wean her from sedation.

“She can open her eyes,” he said. “Shake your hand.”

But, Misty said the road to recovery is long and said no child or family should be confronted.

“If we don’t protect these children, no one will protect them,” he said. “If you can get vaccinated, I suggest you do it. But you still have to wear the mask. It can happen to anyone. It doesn’t matter young, old, what color, it doesn’t matter. This virus does not care. It’s going to hit who you can hit. It will move forward, so we will all have to do our part. “

According to Misty, Amari had an appointment to get a vaccine against COVID-19 in August, but was unable to get it because at that time she was already ill with COVID.

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