COVID-19: Distraught woman forced to listen to mother’s final breath on phone

In a heartbreaking moments, a distraught woman had to listen to her mother’s final breaths on the phone while playing her Tina Turner’s ‘Simply the Best’ as she died of novel coronavirus.    

According to the details, the woman Sophia Essel, 30, had to remain in the waiting room when her mother Kay Elmer, 51, was taking her last breaths alone in the intensive care unit of the hospital.  They could only communicate via phone. On the occasion, grieving Sophia, who works as a DJ, played her the same song which was played at Kay’s mother’s funeral, Daily Mail reported

Talking to journalists, Sophia said, “The more people that ignore the guidance, the longer it’s going to be before I’m allowed to have a memorial for my mum.”

“Unfortunately me and my family have had to pay for people’s mistakes of not staying indoors and regardless of what the law is saying, people need to use their common sense.”

Sophia maintained, “It was really sad. I’m the last person she’d spoken to. My brother is in the army and he’d just been deployed the week before. The next morning she called me crying because she was so scared.”

‘They wouldn’t let us in because they didn’t know if it was the virus or not for a couple of days. I could only look at her through the window, “she said and added, “For five days, it was a case of calling every day and going up there to see if there was any change.

“Her lungs were failing at one point then she picked

up a bit a few days into treatment, but by the last day they called to say we needed to go in and switch the life support off.  Her heart was failing and her kidneys were showing signs of failure. She was on 95 per cent oxygen then, which is just too much.”

She couldn’t bear to watch and instead sat in a waiting room and called her mobile phone. She sat listening to her Kay’s final breaths as they played her favourite songs, including Tina Turner’s Simply The Best – the same song Kay had chosen to say goodbye to her own mother Sylvia.

‘At the end, she was really holding on herself, breathing without the machine, so I had to have a word with her and say “come on now Mum, Nan’s waiting for you”.’

Sophia has since paid tribute to her vivacious mum, who ‘stood out’ and ‘lived life to the full’.

But she will be forced to wait to plan Kay’s memorial service and at present, the mum-of-two will have to be cremated alone.

Sophia said: ‘She was the life and soul. She loved to sing, she sang everywhere she went and always had a crowd with her.

‘Things are even worse without a funeral. Not only could we not hold her hand to say goodbye, we now can’t have a funeral because of the virus.

‘We’ve just got to have a memorial service at a later date.

When asked about how she believes Kay contracted Covid-19, Sophia said, ‘I’m assuming people, at some point, going out when they’ve had symptoms.”