‘It happened very fast.’ Man dies after catching COVID-19 in Bradenton nursing home

Bruce Elder Anderson, 84, loved Bradenton. It would explain why he would spend the last 47 years of his life here.

However, on Thursday, his journey came to an end when he succumbed to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Anderson found himself in Florida after working for a paint manufacturer in New Jersey.

He went to work one morning and arrived to the business being robbed. He was attacked and injured during the robbery and decided the area wasn’t for him anymore. He headed south and never left.

“He loved Florida,” said his sister Dee Long on Friday via phone from Minnesota. “When his health started to fail, we broached the idea with him to come back here and he said no way. He had become a true Floridian. He came a number of years ago for Christmas, felt the cold again and said, ‘Uh-uh, no way.”

Anderson contracted COVID-19 while a patient at the Bradenton Health Care Senior Living facility. Though nursing homes in Manatee County make up a large number of COVID-19-related deaths, Long said her brother’s facility did everything they could to prevent the coronavirus from getting into the nursing home.

“I heard very early on in this when I got a call from their activities director, who has been a big help to us, that they were locking down the facility,” Long said. “To the point where they were even forcing deliveries to be left at the door, so we were heartened by that.”

Anderson just celebrated his birthday

The family celebrated Anderson’s 84th birthday with an online video chat on April 6.

“I got a call Sunday (April 16) he was fairly unresponsive and running a temperature,” Long said. “An ambulance was called and he was taken to Blake Medical Center where they had converted their cardiac ICU into a COVID ICU.”

“We had just had a nice online chat with him,” Long said. “We had heard around his birthday there were no cases at the center, which obviously changed.”

Long said the nurses and physicians at Blake were impressive in the time they spent with her on the phone to keep her updated with every detail of his treatment. Anderson was tested for COVID-19 on that Sunday and the next day the results showed he was infected.

“We got another call saying we should probably think about hospice care because it wasn’t looking good,” Long said. “So we called Tidewell and they were amazing, as well. They mentioned to us that they had a COVID-specific center in Venice and were getting one ready in Bradenton.”

Long said shortly before making a decision, she was told the Bradenton facility was ready.

“At the hospital, the hospice staff couldn’t even go into the rooms,” Long said. “At their converted facility, the staff ratio was good and there was more close contact with the patients at their facility, so he wasn’t alone. It was difficult, of course, because I wish I had been there, but it wasn’t possible.”

Anderson died within days of his first symptom

Anderson was taken to the hospital on Sunday, April 19. By Thursday, April 23, he had died.

Long said he was never on a ventilator.

Once he showed symptoms, recovery was unlikely.

“It happened very fast,” she said.

Anderson’s remains will return home to his sister in Minnesota and at some point this summer, she will hold a graveside service for her brother where much of her family already rests.

“We are his only family left,” Long said.

Her brother will be missed.

“He was a laid back, nice, very outgoing guy,” Long said. “He never appeared to take things too seriously. He was very easy come, easy go and fun to be around and very thoughtful.”

This story was originally published April 24, 2020 at 1:26 PM.