1:55
- ABC News
- August 12, 2021
COVID patients change their minds on vaccines
"We thought it wasn't an urgent matter to get the vaccine and I was wrong."
1:55
\"I never expected to be a widow at the age of 25,\" she told WSB.
Brittany Wright said her husband's dying wish was for more people to get vaccinated.
Lateasa McLean, a 51-year-old in Lincoln County, North Carolina, was hospitalized twice after testing positive for COVD-19.
\"My grandson and my granddaughter, they’re wheeling me out and I’m thinking, 'Is this going to be the last time that I see them?'\" she told ABC Charlotte affiliate WSOC.
“Get vaccinated. I don’t want nobody going through what I went through” is @AtriumHealth teammate/patient, Lateasa McLean’s plea after a near-death experience with #COVID19. Thank you to @ElsaWSOC9 at @wsoctv for telling her lifesaving story. https://t.co/ojd36SxZyj
— Jerrika Swartz (@jerrikashley) August 5, 2021
While in the hospital, McLean said she realized, \"I should have gotten vaccinated. And now I’m putting my family through this, for something I could have prevented.\"
McLean, who works as a patient representative/patient safety sitter at a hospital, said she plans to get vaccinated.
\"I just want everybody to listen to my story and please just get vaccinated,\" she told WSOC.
When Andres Perekalsk, a 43-year-old former pro soccer player, was rushed to a Texas hospital with COVID-19, he thought he was going to die, he later told ABC Houston station KTRK.
\"In your head, you go through many things -- your kids, your family, why didn't I get vaccinated?\" the husband and dad of two said.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/andres-perekalsk-abc-rc-210810_1628612976955_hpMain_4x3t_384.jpg\")
Perekalsk said he did not get the vaccine because he was brainwashed by misinformation.
Perekalsk said he'd now tell others, \"Do it for your kids, do it for your family, do it for yourself … nobody wants to die.\"
David Espino, a 17-year-old high school football player in Florida, was not vaccinated and ended up in the hospital with COVID-19.
“It’s been pretty scary,\" he told ABC News from his hospital bed. \"I wasn’t actually able to go to the bathroom without shortness of breath a couple of days ago.\"
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/david-espino-01-ht-jt-210810_1628624519439_hpEmbed_26x15_384.jpg\")
His mom, Maricela Espino, said she planned on getting David the shot, especially after his pediatrician recommended it, but said, \"For summer we were out of town and then for one thing or another, it just kind of, I pushed it back.\"
She said she's now planning on getting shots for her other children, ages 12 and 15, immediately.
She said she's encouraging other parents to vaccinate their kids if eligible.
\"With school starting and you know we're here [at a hospital], and more than half of the kids here are, you know, due to COVID, and so it's scary,\" she said.
Damonte Clark, a 13-year-old in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, spent 14 days in the ICU. He was diagnosed with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) stemming from a COVID-19 infection.
All of his vital organs were inflamed and failing, his mother, Derica McLeod, told ABC News on Aug. 9.
\"I literally thought that was going to be the last time that I see my son,\" she said. \"I wouldn't wish it on anybody.\"
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/damonte-clark-derica-mcleod-02-ht-iwb-210810_1628608294978_hpEmbed_4x3_384.jpg\")
Damonte was not vaccinated at the time. McLeod didn't know the vaccine was available to him.
\"I got him sanitizer. We had masks, he had gloves, he stopped going to school,\" McLeod said. \"He still ended up in the ICU for 14 days.\"
McLeod said she'll allow her two older children -- ages 17 and 21 -- to decide for themselves if they want be vaccinated. But she does want Damonte to get the shot.
\"We are not invincible. Our children are not invincible. And there's nothing worse than the feeling of helplessness, because in that situation, there's nothing you can do,\" she said. \"There's nothing worse than being a mother who can't protect your baby. \"
ABC News' Marcus Moore, Arielle Mitropoulos, Marlene Lenthang, Victor Oquendo and Haley Yamada contributed to this report.
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