About a week after Patrick Hall was given medication to treat what he believed to be a sinus infection, he realized something was wrong: He was not getting better.
Hall came home from work on June 29 and crashed into the couch, telling his wife, Jaime, that he was not feeling well.
The next morning he took a coronavirus test and got positive results. At the end of the week, he was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit at Ochsner Medical Center and intubated after two days in the COVID observation ward.
The following month, she chronicled her husband’s decline with daily Facebook messages, describing his condition and treatment in more detail and asking for prayers.
Patrick Hall died on August 5., Surrounded by his family. He was 40 years old.
“A roller coaster is the only way I knew how to describe it,” said his widow. ‘We buckled up. Sometimes we had to tighten those straps a little. We did not get off until the end. ”
Hall’s wife and two children, aged 21 and 17, also tested positive for the virus after he was admitted to the hospital, although they were asymptomatic as mild symptoms.
While the diagnosis was a shock, Jaime Hall said, one of the most painful elements of the last month was forced to testify that her giant protector of a man before her eyes was diminished. Patrick Hall stood 6 feet, 3 inches and weighed close to 300 pounds – a large man with a gentle mind, his family said.
“It’s like my big, strong man just this fragile man just lying in his bed,” Jaime Hall said, breaking her voice. “The virus just took everything from him.”
Patrick Hall was born in Baton Rouge, but spent his childhood and adulthood in Destrehan, St. Louis. Charles Parish, where he developed an active love of all things outdoors. The middle child in a family with three boys, Hall was quiet and close to his mother – although she said he could also be a joker.
“He always controlled me and never wanted me to be by myself,” said Cindy Oncale Hall, his mother. “When he was a friend to you, he was always a friend.”
Patrick Hall attended Southeast Louisiana University, where he met his wife, Jaime, in an AOL chat room. They discovered that they had a communication class together and both were deeply involved in Greek life on campus; it did not take long before they fell in love.
While still in college, the couple had their first child, Ashlyn.
“That’s when our lives changed forever,” Jaime Hall said. “She was a girl’s father from day 1.”
Both finished school, got married and started their lives together in Central: They had another child, Landon, and Jaime Hall stayed home with the children, while Patrick Hall began a career in auto finance.
For Patrick Hall, his family was everything. He taught his children what he loved about the outdoors and sports, was always playful about throwing the ball in the backyard and even tagged on beach trips with his wife and children, even though he had infamous sand.
When the coronavirus arrived, Jaime Hall said, her husband was someone who did not necessarily believe he had anything to fear. He was healthy and active, only 40 years old – why would COVID-19 do anything to him?
“It shows it can affect someone,” his wife said.
For most of the difficult month of his hospitalization, the Hall family could not see him because of precautionary measures taken by the hospital to stop the spread of the virus. They relied on the medical staff at Ochsner to fill them in on his details and began keeping a notebook near the phone so they could take notes on each development.
“They worked unsafe,” his mother said. “They shouted next to us and laughed next to us. I have no doubt they did everything they could for him.”
The children of the Hall also stepped up to help.
As her father lay dying in his hospital bed, Ashlyn Hall, 21, decided she had a chance to help others. Although her father did not respond positively to the restorative plasma treatment for the virus – where blood is collected from people who have recovered from the coronavirus and then given to current patients – she may have thought that someone else would benefit.
Both she and her brother Landon – who were both recovering from mild cases of the virus – donated plasma to other patients.
“I could not help my father, but I could help others,” Ashlyn Hall said. “That other people don’t have to go through things we went through.”
After Patrick Hall was in the hospital, Jaime Hall’s messages, cataloging her husband and treatments and condition, began to attract the attention of thousands of people on Facebook. She said that when her husband fought to get home, the prayers began to flow in.
“Patrick is just middle class, average Joe,” she said. “He touched so many people. I believe Patrick’s purpose on this earth was to bring people to prayer.”
To those with lovers who suffer in the hospital with the virus, Jaime Hall says to never give up hope and trust in God. It is the only thing that has helped her family through the most difficult time in her life.
“I’m not saying it’s easy because there are a lot of people who say how strong we are,” she said. “No. It’s God. It’s our faith. We’ll still go that.”
In the grief and pain of her family, Jaime Hall said, she prayed for the people who do not believe that precautionary measures for the virus are needed.
“The investigation has been there since March,” she said. “I respect people for whatever their decision is, whatever political views they have, but this is real. This virus will not go away after the election. The virus does not discriminate.”
