Brent Green was a single mom to twins in Fairburn, Georgia. Her mom and friend tell her story
Today, our Wake-Up Call newsletter is telling the story of Brent Green, a beloved mother, daughter, who died at age 36 from Covid-19 in Georgia.
Brent Green was a kindhearted, creative friend, mom, daughter. “She was a giver,” her friend Cora Moore said. She’d design jewelry and other crafts for her family and friends — many of whom worked with her at a manufacturing warehouse in Georgia.
Brent, only 36, recently died of Covid-19. Cora, and her other friends, are devastated. “You wait for her to come inside the building,” she told us. “Because I just still can’t believe that she’s gone.”
Over 900 people have died of Covid-19 in Georgia. But it’s become one of the first states to relax its stay-at-home orders and reopen businesses — despite concern from health experts that it’s too soon. “I think it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Linda Green, Brent’s mom, said. “I don’t know where their minds are at a time like this. They’re putting the statistics up on the television, saying how many people have been affected, how many people have died, and you’re still saying to open up these areas for people to be exposed again?”
Brent Green and the others lost are more than just statistics. She was a single mom — raising twelve-year-old twins, in Fairburn, Georgia. At the age of 31, she bought her first home — a feat she was very proud of. Her mom told us: “From the time the children were born, she would completely just build everything around them. Making sure they were taken care of — that was her first priority.” Along with art, Brent loved movies and taking her kids on road trips.
It is unclear where Brent might’ve contracted Covid-19. Her mom noted that her workplace put into place various safety measures when the virus hit. But around March 20th, she began experiencing severe back pain.
She went to a nearby hospital. Staff said she most likely had Covid-19, but they had run out of tests for the day. They gave her an injection to help with the pain. She passed out — but they still sent her home.
Her symptoms worsened, and her mom raced in to help — with pain medicine, oranges, zinc, and other immunity boosters. “She was able to eat an orange that night, and the next day she was so sick, she couldn’t do anything,” Linda told us.
On March 25th, Brent was rushed to a different hospital’s emergency room. She was admitted, tested positive for Covid-19, and was put on a ventilator. “We couldn’t go in with her,” her mother told us. “From that point on, we had no other contact with my daughter…And they said that she should have never been released from the other hospital. She should have been admitted.”
Linda was able to speak with her to tell her what was going on: “I told her, ‘You do everything they tell you, baby,’ I said, ‘You fight for your life. I love you’. And she said, ‘I love you too mom.’ And that was the last conversation I had with my daughter.”
Later, when she was too sick to have a conversation, Linda said: “[The hospital staff] would put the phone to her ear. I would talk to her and tell her to breathe. All I could do was hold her picture every night and talk to my child that way because we weren’t able to visit her.”
At one point, Brent’s condition was looking up. She was put on various mediations used to treat Covid-19. “I talked to a neurologist…and she told me that everything looked good for her, that at that point they had another patient that was young like she was, and in two days was able to go home.”
But Brent’s condition did not improve: She died on Friday, April 3rd.
“[I felt like] the whole world collapsed,” Linda told us. “I wasn’t there to be able to make sure that she was getting the help she needed…or to put my eyes on her. I feel like that’s the most horrible way to die — to not have anyone with you at that time. And she was alone. She was literally alone.”
“I had to go and share the bad news in our department, and they let us all go home,” Cora said. “We couldn’t function…we just miss her: her smile, laughter, jokes.”
Her friends and family had a socially distanced funeral service for Brent outside, to honor her memory. “It’s going to take a long time to get through this,” Linda said. “Because it’s just like someone came and just snatched her off in the night.”
Our hearts are with Linda, Cora, and their loved ones at this time. Donate to help her family here.
Reporting by staff writer Amanda Svachula
This originally appeared on Medium.com
