https://www.theguardian.com/society...vaccine?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
Before he died, John told the doctor treating him how much he regretted not getting the vaccine. “The doctor said that he was beating himself up so much before they put him on the ventilator,” Jenny says. “He was saying: ‘Why didn’t I get vaccinated? Why didn’t I do it? Why didn’t I listen?’”
The life and tragic death of John Eyers – a fitness fanatic who refused the vaccine
John tested positive for Covid on 29 June. By 3 July, he was seriously unwell. Amy, the woman who had recently become his girlfriend, had to force him to call 111 for help. Later that day, he was taken to Southport & Ormskirk hospital by ambulance.
Jonathan texted his friend as soon as he heard the news. “He said that he couldn’t type, but that he was in hospital with pneumonia,” he remembers. “He wouldn’t admit at that point that it was Covid.”
John had a raging temperature and difficulty breathing. Doctors put him on a Cpap machine, to assist his breathing, and swathed him in cooling blankets. On 4 July, John was up all night vomiting blood. He sent Jonathan a voice note the next morning.
“It is the worst voice note I have ever heard in my life,” says Jonathan. “I burst out crying halfway through it.” The voice note is a minute and a half long. In that time, John speaks about 12 words. “I will never send it to anyone, but if anyone questioned whether Covid is real, I would play it to them,” says Jonathan. “It is the worst thing in the world. I can hear the fear in him. He is literally gasping for air. This is someone I knew who could run 10k or climb a mountain without struggling.”
John in intensive care. Photograph: Courtesy of Jenny McCann
On 6 July, Jenny was in the supermarket when a feeling of great panic settled upon her. “I just had this feeling that something wasn’t right with John,” she says. She left without doing her shopping. That afternoon, she got the phone call. John was in the ICU. She immediately got a train to Southport, sobbing the whole way.
By 11 July, John needed to go on a ventilator. Jenny spoke to him on the phone before he was sedated. She told him she loved him. He couldn’t respond, but he texted her: “Don’t let them give up on me.” It was the last message she received from her twin.
On the morning of 27 July, John’s family got the call they had been dreading. He was dying; they should come in right away. They raced to the hospital, but John had stabilised by the time they arrived. Staff told them to go home and said they would call back if there was any change.
About an hour later, the hospital called back. The family piled into the car and started driving to the hospital at top speed. Nurses kept calling, telling them to hurry. They raced to the ICU, where staff were waiting with PPE. Jenny could hear the alarms going off in her brother’s room. “I couldn’t stop shaking,” she says. “It felt like a monster was about to come out of my mouth and I couldn’t control it.”
When they had finally tugged on the PPE, they ran into his room. It was full of ICU staff, all in tears. John had just died. Jenny’s stepdad collapsed to the floor. Her mum was wailing. “The matron grabbed my mum and was holding her,” says Jenny. “Everyone was crying. The consultant was crying. All the staff were crying. Because he was so young. And they couldn’t save him.”