Bradenton nursing home resident dies from COVID-19. Her son had to say goodbye on Zoom
Carol “Dorothy” Davis had not recognized her younger son in about two years because of her dementia. On Tuesday, he and his family had to say goodbye to her through a Zoom video conference before she died from COVID-19 at Manatee Memorial Hospital on Tuesday. She was 80.
Davis had been a resident at Braden River Rehabilitation for the last couple years of her life. It was there where she contracted the coronavirus.
As of Friday evening, there had been at least 58 cases of residents or staffers from long-term care facilities in Manatee County who had tested positive for the coronavirus. Eleven of those people had died.
On April 6, Braden River Rehabilitation Center notified Davis’ family that she had tested positive for the coronavirus. Her symptoms included a mild fever initially, according to her son. But on the night of April 8-9, her fever spiked to 102 and the facility decided that she needed more care so Davis was taken to Manatee Memorial Hospital.
“They weren’t getting the results with Tylenol and the fever so they thought it would be better if she moved over to the hospital,” Lawrence Watkins said.
At the hospital, doctors tried putting Davis on a higher volume of oxygen since the family did not want her to be placed on a ventilator. That wasn’t enough to fight off the effects of COVID-19 so they decided to stop that treatment.
“She didn’t seem to struggle ... She mainly slept,” Watkins said, finding some comfort that his mother had not suffered the more severe effects of COVID-19.
A Zoom goodbye
Watkins, who lives in Minnesota, had not recently seen his mother. The progression of her dementia made speaking to her on the phone impossible.
“It’s been a couple years since I felt that I connected with her and I felt that she knew who I was,” he said. “We pretty much stopped trying to talk to her on the phone because she didn’t know who you were and she stopped knowing how to use the phone.”
But he remained in contact with those who cared for his mother regularly. And while she may not have been able to speak or recognize him, an ICU nurse at Manatee Memorial Hospital gave him the opportunity to say goodbye.
“The ICU nurse up there was able to set up a Zoom call and I was able to speak at her,” Watkins said. “It meant a lot. It really did.”
Watkins had never used Zoom before.
The clarity of the video impressed him, but he was really struck by the emotional toll his mother’s illness was taking on those caring for her and others suffering from COVID-19.
“I know how emotional it was for me but you could feel even on the Zoom call, how hard it was for them,” he said.
Unsure on how well information was being disseminated back to his mother’s nursing home, Watkins called Braden River Rehabilitation Center to make sure her primary nurse knew she had died.
“You could hear the emotional pain,” he said. “It’s just hard on everybody.”
Remembering Dorothy
Davis was born in Alabama. With her husband, she raised their three children in Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C.
The couple moved to Florida about 25 years ago and her husband died about 20 years ago. Since moving to Florida, Davis ran several travel agencies, so she got to do a lot of traveling herself.
Following her dementia diagnosis, Davis went to live in an assisted living facility in Englewood for several years until a bad fall a couple years ago. Davis was treated for her injuries from that fall for several days before being sent to Braden River Rehabilitation Center.
Because of the increased level of care needed, she would remain there, in the nursing home’s dementia unit, permanently.
Davis is survived by her three children, William T. Watkins, Lawrence Watkins and Stephanie Watkins; four grandchildren, Drew Long, Jorden Watkins, Michael Watkins and Kristen Watkins; and two great-grandchildren Aiden Watkins and Hunter Watkins.
Funeral services will be held later in Jasper, Ala., after the threat from the coronavirus has passed.
Call for more public information
With his own mother catching the coronavirus in a nursing home, Watkins knows first hand about the lack of information being released about long-term care facilities with confirmed cases. While he was able to get information about his mother testing positive and her COVID-19 symptoms, he was not able to get any details about how other people associated with the center might be sick.
“I don’t think it’s getting the attention it needs at assisted living facilities,” Watkins said. “There’s an acute problem in a lot of places and unless there’s more data, I don’t think they are going to get the help they need.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and state and local officials had refused to disclose the names of long-term care centers with cases of COVID-19.. But on Saturday afternoon, DeSantis announced he had asked the state’s surgeon general to release the names.
Watkins feels there are too many people who still don’t understand the magnitude of the pandemic.
“People need to know, that there are a lot of seniors that are going to die,” he said. “Its hard knowing that there seems to be a lot of people don’t care.”
While only a small percentage of those who catch the coronavirus will actually die from COVID-19, Watkins said the number of people affected by those deaths is much larger because they are mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers.
“The number doesn’t express that, it’s the cold hard reality,” Watkins said. “It doesn’t express the pain.”
This story was originally published April 18, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
