An X-ray technologist from Orange, California, fell ill and was rushed to the emergency room a few hours after receiving his second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine earlier this month, and died four days later. the Orange County Registry reported.
What are the details?
Tim Zook, 60, looked quite hopeful in a Jan. 5 Facebook post, the record said.
“I had never been thrilled before I got shot,” Zook wrote about a photo of a Band-Aid on his arm and his COVID-19 vaccination card, according to the document. “I am now fully vaccinated after receiving my second dose of Pfizer.”
It would be his last post on Facebook.
Just hours later, Zook, an X-ray technologist at South Medical Global Medical Center in Santa Ana, had upset stomach and trouble breathing, according to the record. At three-thirty in the afternoon his condition worsened so much that his co-workers took him to the emergency room, the newspaper added.
“Should I be worried?” his wife, Rochelle, sent him a text message when, after receiving the news, he said the record.
“No, absolutely not,” Zook sent a text message, the newspaper noted.
“Do you think this is a direct result of the vaccine?” sent a text message, pointed to the log.
“No, no,” he replied, according to the newspaper. “I’m not sure what. But don’t worry.”
The record said Zook “passionately urged people to take precautions against COVID, such as masking and staying home, as intensive care units were flooded in December.”
Fast descent
But Zook’s condition quickly worsened.
More registration information:
COVID was suspected and congestive heart failure was diagnosed. Oxygen was put into Zook and then, just four hours later, a BiPAP machine to help push air into the lungs. Multiple tests have been negative for COVID.
Shortly after midnight on January 7, the hospital called. Zook was in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator to help him breathe. But his blood pressure soon dropped and he was taken to UC Irvine Medical Center. “On Friday they call me,‘ Your kidneys are failing. You need dialysis. If not, he could die, but there is also the possibility that he has a heart attack or stroke on dialysis because his blood pressure is very low. “,” Said Rochelle Zook.
At 4 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 9, Zook had switched to “code blue” twice and was snatched to the brink of death. In the afternoon there was a third blue code. “They said if it got blue for the fourth time, it would have brain damage and it would be a vegetable if it survives,” Rochelle Zook said.
Zook died later that day, according to the newspaper.
“We don’t blame any pharmaceutical company”
“We don’t blame any pharmaceutical company,” Rochelle Zook told the record. “My husband loved what he did. He worked in hospitals for 36 and a half years. He believed in vaccines. I’m sure he would take this vaccine again and want the public to take it. But when someone gets symptoms 2 and a half hours “After the vaccine, it’s a reaction. What else could have happened? We’d like the public to know what happened to Tim, so he didn’t die in vain. Serious reactions are rare. In fact, COVID is a much more deadly than the reactions to the potential vaccine itself.The message is, rest assured, get the vaccine, but officials need to do more research.We need to know the cause.Vaccines need to be as safe as possible. All life matters. “
Zook’s widow also told the newspaper that she had high blood pressure, but that for years she had been monitored with medication. Zook was a little overweight but healthy, the record added.
“He had never been hospitalized,” Rochelle Zook told the newspaper. “It would get cold and get over it two days later. The flu, and it would happen three days later.”
More registration information:
His death has been reported to the national vaccine adverse event information system, managed by the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control. The Orange County coroner has said the cause of death is not conclusive at this time and that toxicology testing will take months.
“The family just wants to close,” Zook’s cousin Ken Polanco of Los Angeles said. “” Inconclusive “is not a closure. The family wants pharmaceutical companies to do more research: if there is any type of DNA that doesn’t work with this vaccine, if episodes like this can be prevented, they should do what they can to fix it “. […]
The vaccine adverse event reporting system (which officials warn is a “passive surveillance system” and represents unverified reports of health events occurring after vaccination) has gathered more than 130 reports. of deaths after vaccine administration by 2021. A total of 1,330 adverse reactions have been reported, while more than 23.5 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been administered.
Experts warn that it is often very difficult to draw a causal line between vaccination and death. When millions of people get vaccinated (more than 13 million have received the Pfizer vaccine on January 26 and more than 10.5 million have received the Modern vaccine), some would die for various unrelated reasons, as a matter of pure statistics. .
What was Pfizer supposed to say?
A Pfizer-BioNTech spokesman told the newspaper that the pharmaceutical company is aware of Zook’s death and is thoroughly reviewing the issue.
“Our immediate thoughts are with the grieving family,” the company said in an emailed statement, according to the record. “We follow these events closely and gather relevant information to share with global regulatory authorities. Based on ongoing safety reviews conducted by Pfizer, BioNTech and health authorities, [the vaccine] maintains a positive benefit-risk profile for the prevention of COVID-19 infections. Serious adverse events, including non-vaccine-related deaths, are likely to occur at a rate similar to that of the general population. ”
The Orange County coroner said he has an open investigation into Zook’s death and will conduct more tests as part of his autopsy protocol, spokeswoman Carrie Braun told reporters, adding that the office of the coroner will use his findings to dictate a final determination on the cause. and form of death.
“If it is determined that there may be a correlation with the vaccine, we will notify the Oc Health Agency immediately,” Braun added to the record.