A Las Vegas flight attendant from Southwest Airlines has died of COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated, his mother said on Friday.
Maurice Reginald “Reggie” Shepperson, 36, spent more than a month at Henderson Hospital before his death. His Las Vegas mother, Dawn Shepperson-Bernard, said she was informed of her son’s death early Tuesday.
“It shows how quickly life can change,” said Shepperson-Bernard. “How you can build a life and how quickly your life can simply be taken away. Everything you’ve worked so hard for can basically only be in ruins. Your family is in ruins. “
Southwest said Friday that Shepperson worked for the airline for about nine years. His mother said Reggie previously worked for AirTran Airways and had been a flight attendant since around 2007.
“We are heartbroken at the loss,” Southwest said in an email. “The Southwest Family supports one another and our employees’ families during this difficult time. Out of respect for Reggie’s family, we have no further details to share. “
Shepperson-Bernard said her son was her anchor in life. She remembered how when he was six years old in New York City he came to her at a turbulent time and told the single mother not to worry because God would protect her.
”A message he gave me as a child, he said: ‘Mom, they can’t hurt you,’ ”she said in a telephone interview on Friday. “I said, ‘Are you sure? Why are you saying that?’
“’Because God said your spirit is too pure,’” she quoted her son as saying. “That just took a load off me.”
This emotional support and loving bond between mother and son continued throughout his life. Reggie graduated from Georgia high school and then moved to Las Vegas to work as a flight attendant.
“He loved it,” she recalls. “Excellent at it. So professionally. No matter what the situation, he could stay calm. “
The mother and son traveled to Hawaii in late June. Both have been tested repeatedly for COVID-19, with all test results negative. However, Shepperson fell ill when she returned home. He was immediately quarantined and then tested positive for COVID-19, his mother said. Reggie’s mother would leave him food and drinks at his door during the quarantine.
“He said, ‘I’m in pain, in great pain everywhere,” she recalls, adding, “He was so sick he couldn’t get up.”
On July 7th, Reggie abruptly drove herself to the emergency room at Henderson Hospital.
“He said he couldn’t breathe,” said Shepperson-Bernard. “He had an accident in the parking lot (of the hospital) against the sidewalk. He couldn’t breathe and he was beside himself. “
He spent the next four or more weeks in the hospital, most of it on a ventilator. Shepperson-Bernard said she spoke to her son on FaceTime daily and prayed with him every day, every “hour on the hour,” she said, but her visits to him were limited due to coronavirus precautions.
“He would talk if he could,” said Shepperson-Bernard. “He couldn’t talk much with the oxygen. He would give me a thumbs up if he could. “
A friend of Reggie’s, Marcia Hildreth, created a GoFundMe on Friday to help pay for funeral expenses.
“His personality, wit and humor were just a few qualities everyone loved,” she wrote. “He was one of the friendliest people I have ever met. If you needed him, he would be there with no questions asked. “
Shepperson-Bernard said she would like her son to be known as a loving, caring man who has spent his life giving to others.
Contact Glenn Puit by email at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter.
