Ray DeMonia, 73, of Cullman, Alabama
An Alabama man has died of heart failure after being removed from 43 hospitals in three southern states that were overrun with COVID patients.
Ray DeMonia, 73, was finally admitted to a hospital in Meridian, Mississippi, 200 miles from his home in Cullman, Alabama, but was too ill to save him and died Sept. 1.
DeMonia, who ran an antiques business for 40 years, had suffered a heart attack a few days before her birthday and needed a cardiac ICU bed.
Her family said staff at her local hospital had contacted 43 hospitals in three states asking for a free bed before they were finally in Meridian, Mississippi, according to DeMonia’s obituary.
He died shortly after arriving at Rush Foundation Hospital.
“In honor of Ray, please get vaccinated if you don’t, in an effort to free up resources for non-COVID-related emergencies,” his obituary said.
DeMonia’s death occurred the same day the U.S. reported 180,000 new cases of COVID, with a majority concentrated in the south.
COVID-19 hospitalizations experienced a dramatic rise in August in Alabama and the rest of the United States.
Alabama has been behind vaccination rates, and the state has only reported that approximately 50% of its eligible population has received at least one dose.
The Alabama Department of Health recently reported that just over half of those eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine have received at least one punch.
This is well below the national average of 63.7% who have had at least one dose and 54% of Americans who are fully vaccinated.
During the week of DeMonia’s death, Alabama reported a shortage of hospital beds in the ICU, with more than half of them occupied by COVID-19 patients, CBS reports 42.
The Alabama Hospital Association had described the situation as “serious.”
“We certainly don’t tend in the right direction,” AHA deputy director Danne Howard told CBS the day DeMonia died.
“That’s why we’re trying to aggressively find additional resources, so we don’t have to make those decisions, so we don’t have to deal with these kinds of death or life situations.”
Johns Hopkins University and Medicine found that Alabama ICU beds had a capacity of 103% that week and Montgomery Advertiser reported that unvaccinated patients continue to form the majority of ICU COVID-19 patients.
DeMonia’s family has asked other people to get vaccinated to avoid the situation they lived through. Pictured, a woman vaccinated in Altamonte Springs, Florida, in August
Russell Griffin, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, who has studied patients hospitalized at the university hospital for COVID, said 61 of 66 patients in COVID-intensive care were not vaccinated.
He added that about half of the patients vaccinated in the ICU are there because they are immunocompromised due to organ transplants or chemotherapy.
In comparison, the unvaccinated population ending up in the ICU generally has no comorbidities or the presence of two or more medical conditions.
“There have been no deaths under the age of 65 in the vaccinated population of the UAB,” Griffin said.
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported more than 163,000 new cases in the United States and nearly 1,650 new deaths.
According to the CDC, more than 75% of vaccine-eligible adults in the U.S. have received at least one punch.
