‘I should have gotten the damn vaccine,’ Las Vegas father of 5 who later died of COVID texts from hospital bed

‘Oh my [expletive] God. That’s terrible, “writes father about the coronavirus

by: David Charns

Posted: Jul 30, 2021 / 12:38 PM PDT
/ Updated: 7/30/2021 / 5:41 PM PDT

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – A Las Vegas father who caught COVID-19 while on vacation texted his fiancée from the hospital: “I should have got the damn vaccine,” she told 8 News Now.

Michael Freedy, 39, father of five, and his fiancée Jessica du Preez traveled to San Diego with their family in mid-July.

Mike Freedy is vacationing in San Diego for a few days in July. (Photo credit: Jessica du Preez)

When Freedy returned home he developed a painful rash, du Preez said.

“He got chills, couldn’t eat, couldn’t get comfortable, couldn’t sleep,” said du Preez. “All symptoms of sun poisoning.”

He later tested positive for coronavirus and developed breathing difficulties with pneumonia in both lungs, du Preez said.

“Oh my [expletive] God. That’s terrible, ”Freedy du Preez sent a text message from the hospital. “I should have got the damn vaccine.”

“Oh my [expletive] God. That’s terrible, ”Freedy du Preez wrote in a text message from the hospital. “I should have got the damn vaccine.” (KLAS)

“I went to intensive care that night to see him after receiving one of the worst phone calls ever,” du Preez wrote in a GoFundMe post. “The nurse told me to go to the next of kin and take all of his belongings home with me.”

Du Preez said Freedy died in the hospital Thursday morning.

“We just held back, thinking now that if we had got the vaccination a week or a month before one of our jobs had a vaccination, he could still be here,” she told us.

Both du Preez and her oldest child received the first dose of the vaccine when Freedy was hospitalized, she said. She shared that she never had any intention of not not getting vaccinated, she just wanted to wait about a year to see the long-term effects of the vaccine.

Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said any long-term effects of the vaccine would occur within the first two months of vaccination. They continue to stress the importance of vaccination.

Du Preez hopes her family’s story will lead others to take the virus seriously and avoid a similar tragedy. A GoFundMe for the family had raised nearly $ 20,000 by noon Friday.

Mike Freedy (Jessica du Preez / KLAS)

While the majority of Nevada’s residents 70 and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine, the state is struggling to attract younger people to the vaccine.

By Wednesday, the last day of available data, 53% of adults aged 20 to 39 years in Clark County had received at least one dose of the vaccine.

By Friday, more than 47% of vaccine-eligible Nevadans were fully vaccinated and 57% of the eligible population had vaccinated. Clark County reported that more than 46% of eligible residents were fully vaccinated as of Friday, which is closer to the 60% goal.

Hospitals across Nevada reported that the majority of patients hospitalized with coronavirus were unvaccinated.