MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — A Manatee County family pleaded for people to get vaccinated after their mother died from COVID-19 and her son remains on a ventilator.
“She was a mom, she was a wife and she was a very good grandma. Everyone loved her,” said Monica Abundo.
Her mother, Mary Abundo, 55, of Manatee County, died on August 3 just two days after she was diagnosed with COVID-19. The same week, her son Valentin Abundo was admitted into the ICU at the same hospital. He’s now been on life support for nearly a month battling COVID-19.
“He had all those machines; his hands were full of medications and IVs. It was hard to see him there,” Abundo said.
Monica said her brother was a healthy 34-year-old, a local business owner, and a single father of five children.
“They’re scared. They came to my house and said if ‘grandma didn’t make it, what are the changes that my daddy’s going to make it?’ They said,” Abundo said.
Abundo said neither her mother nor brother were vaccinated. She said she was against the vaccine, but since her mother's passing; she has gotten the shot. She doesn’t want another family to go through what hers is going through and urges those who haven’t gotten the vaccine to get it.
“Don’t think about it twice. Get it before it’s too late. Get it before you lose someone, and you can't say goodbye,” she said.
Abundo has created a GoFundMe page to help support her brother's five children, while he’s in the hospital.
