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MISSOURI, USA (ANN): A first-time mother died of COVID-19 just four days after giving birth to a baby in Missouri, USA.
JoEllen Engelbart, a 32-year-old Jackson County deputy prosecutor, succumbed to the disease on January 2, according to ABC affiliate KMBC, the same day.
Her first child and her husband Matt, a son named Ross, was born three months early. Engelbart’s brother, Larry Flanagan, later noted that he was unable to even hold baby Ross before he died.
“The fact that she was never able to hug him is devastating,” he told Fox affiliate WDAF.
“His whole life was the last few months spent making sure Ross made it into this world,” he added. “That’s all he cared about.”
One of her colleagues and good friends, Kelly Conlon, has created a crowdfunding page for Engelbart’s husband and son.
Conlon said that despite the tragic loss, baby Ross was “a fighter like his mother and will spend the next few months recovering to go home.” Currently, the newborn is being cared for in a neonatal intensive care unit.
The fundraiser has already received more than $ 116,800 from more than 1,500 donors as of this writing. The amount will be given directly to Matt to help cover the hospitalization of his late wife and newborn son. Philippine Daily Inquirer / Asia News Network
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