Matthew Libby, 43, was strong and healthy and figured he was at low risk of getting a serious case of the coronavirus.
| Melanie Creamer, Press Herald |
Matthew Libby had so much to look forward to in his life.
He was a new father. His son, Alexander, was just 4 months old. He was engaged to Alexander’s mother. They planned to get married in May.
Libby was strong and healthy. He figured he was at low risk for getting a serious case of COVID-19. So he chose not to get vaccinated.
He died Jan. 28 of complications of COVID in the intensive care unit at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston.
He was 43 years old. He had spent 22 days in the hospital, all but the first three on a ventilator.
His fiancee, Jenny Freeman, who had been wary of getting the vaccine while she was pregnant, got vaccinated after he was hospitalized.
“It scared the heck out of us,” she said. “No one should have to go through what I’m going through now. No one.”
She was holding his hand when he died.
“I’m still in shock and absolutely devastated,” she wrote in a Facebook post a few days later. “It doesn’t matter how much doctors prepare you for the worst, you never really think it could happen. His poor body just couldn’t fight any longer.”
