An unvaccinated Florida TikToker posted her latest videos from a hospital bed in which she asked others to receive the shot after recounting the days spent listening to the moans and screams of others.
Just over a week later, he died of COVID complications at age 31.
“I don’t have a lot of energy to talk about, so I’ll try to do it fast,” Jacksonville resident Alexandra Blankenbiller told her 16,300 followers in her final video in a faint, raspy voice.
‘I didn’t get vaccinated. I am not anti-vax. I was just trying to investigate. I was scared. ‘
“I think it was a mistake,” he continued. I shouldn’t have waited. If you even have 70% safety of the vaccine, go get it. Don’t wait. Go get it. Because hopefully, if you get it, you won’t end up in the hospital like I do. ”
In her latest video posted on the platform, Florida TikToker Alexandra Blankenbiller (pictured) begged her 16,300 followers to get vaccinated from a hospital bed
The video, the last of four she did while in hospital, was released Aug. 15. He died nine days later, WedMD reported.
It has been viewed almost 834,000 times.
Blankenbiller said in an earlier video that he had been waiting to try to convince his entire family to get vaccinated at the same time, and that he had his own hesitation in getting the shot.
“It’s okay to have questions, but I’m just telling you that I was for weeks really thinking about getting it, ready to get it, but frankly I waited because I was trying to convince my whole family to do it at the same time, she said.
But, if you’re on my boat and you’re waiting to convince someone else to do it with you, don’t. Just get vaccinated.
Blankenbiller, along with his mother and two sisters, had arranged appointments for vaccination, but before the scheduled time slots appeared, they had fallen ill, making Blankenbiller the most serious of the four.
Blankenbiller said he had hesitated to take the vaccine, but told viewers it was a mistake and that he had waited too long.
“It’s no secret, it’s something that should be taken seriously,” his sister, Cristina Blankenbiller, told WebMD. “But there’s so much misinformation.”
Blakenbiller posted his first message from the hospital bed on Aug. 13, where screams of pain could be heard in the background.
Go video caption: “The” vine got me guys. DO NOT WAIT TO BE VACCINATED! Go now !! And please pray / send good vibes, etc. for me. Be sure of the cupcakes!
In another, in which he addressed a commenter who suggested that fears about the virus were excessive, he said his experience indicated otherwise.
“I’ve been here since the early hours of Friday morning and all I’ve heard are the complaints and screams of the people suffering,” he said, getting excited.
“People, I guess they’ve lost people they love, because I know what it’s like personally and how it sounds.”
He said his experience in the hospital, where he spent days listening to moans and screams from other people in pain, suggested that fears about the coronavirus should not be exaggerated.
Blankenbiller’s death occurred when Florida experienced its worst increase in coronavirus since the onset of the pandemic, with an average of 244 deaths from Covid-19 in late August.
Blankenbiller’s death occurred when Florida experienced the worst increase in coronavirus infections since the beginning of the pandemic.
With only 54 percent of its population vaccinated, the state recorded a seven-day rotating average of 244 deaths from Covid-19 last month, compared with a previous high of 227 in August 2020, according to the CDC.
After his death, friends and family remembered Blankenbiller for his selflessness.
“Her last video really showed a lot of who she was,” Rachel Blankenbiller told WebMD, her other sister. She was disinterested. The kind of person who used his last days to help others. “
“She found beauty in everything and everyone,” she added. ‘She loved people without judgment. Regardless of whether or not you wanted love, you would get it.
A friend and local filmmaker Royce Freeman said Blankenbiller would visit him often on set and help him.
Blankenbiller said he had been waiting to be vaccinated along with the rest of his family, but by the time they made the appointment, everyone had fallen ill.
The two were working together on a script when he died, WebMD reported, and continued after he became ill until he became too ill.
“The day before I went to the hospital, he would send me pages,” he said. “It didn’t feel right, but it was moving forward.”
The local a cappella group, Jax Treblemakers, also mourned Blankenbiller’s death, with Alec Hadden, the group’s artistic director, saying at the outset that it was like a family to them.
“She was deeply concerned about helping others, and I think it was compassion for others that drove her to try to educate people through her latest videos,” she said. “I didn’t want anyone, not even a stranger to watch her videos on TikTok, to suffer the pain and harm that she and other people in the COVID room were going through. And if I could help even one person, I would.” .