One woman shared a heart-wrenching experience of getting to bid farewell to her mother over FaceTime just before she succumbed to Coronavirus, all made possible by the assistance of a nurse at a Washington hospital.
Michelle Bennett was informed by medical staff that she couldn’t be physically present with her 75-year-old mother, Carolann Christine Gann, who had contracted COVID-19 at Swedish Issaquah hospital in Washington.
Worried that her mother might not survive the disease, Michelle was fearful of not being able to say her final goodbyes to her ailing mom.
On March 26, a nurse named Tatyana, recognizing Gann’s deteriorating condition, took the initiative to put on protective gear and used her personal cell phone to facilitate a FaceTime farewell between Bennett and her mother.
The nurse, who was by the mother’s side as her condition worsened, connected with Michelle through FaceTime.
“I’m going to put the phone up to her face so you can tell her you love her and say your goodbyes,” Bennett recalls the nurse saying to her. “She will not be alone, we will stay with her till the end,” Benneth shared with CNN.
“I love you very much,” Bennett expressed to her mother, and added that she had never had the chance to tell her mother that she forgave her.
“I forgive you mom, I love you. I know I didn’t get a chance to say it,” Bennett said.
Benneth hopes her mother heard her final words.
“Mom, it’s OK to pass on. It’s OK to go now.” Within an hour, Bennett said her mother had passed away.
“Not being able to be there and hold my mom’s hand, rub her head, tell her the things I wanted to say to her. It was such a helpless feeling, I can just remember the days leading up feeling so frustrated and helpless and not being able to talk to her because she was not conscious during that time,” Bennett told CNN on Monday.
Bennet noticed the nurse was tearful as she took the phone away.
“I know how difficult this is for them,” she said. “I can’t imagine being on the front lines of that and having to go home every day and risk infection themselves, but then have the compassion and the empathy to be right there in that moment as if it was their own mother. That was one of the most amazing things I’ve experienced.”
Watch the video below.