His dad died of COVID-19 alone in a hospital. He says it was 'painful to watch' the president drive-by his supporters while infected with the disease.

Inyoung ChoiOct 7, 2020, 16:01 IST

Insider

ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images

The coronavirus has killed over 1 million people globally. Many died alone, due to strict COVID-19 hospital rules.
The president casually drove past his supporters while infected with the very disease that killed more than 210,000 Americans across the country.
Insider spoke with a man who lost his father in April to coronavirus who couldn't be there with him for his final moments. He said "it's painful to watch" the president downplay the disease.

John Pijanowski's dad is not going to be at Thanksgiving dinner this year. In April, 51-year-old Pjanowski lost his 87-year-old father Don to a sudden, fatal case of coronavirus that "literally hit him like a lightning bolt." Don died alone in hospital, isolated from his family.

The grief is hardly over for Pijanowski.

Just a few days ago, President Donald Trump casually drove by his supporters while infected with the very disease that killed John's father.

"It's painful to watch," Pijanowski said of the president's action.

"There are these stages of grief, and I think anger is the hardest one to let go of right now," he added. "I think it's hard to let go of, because, we're not just fighting the virus, and we're not just processing our own grief and our own loss, but we're also fighting with each other about whether we should be fighting the virus."

Trump has regularly trivialized the coronavirus, promoting misguided cures and an abundance of misinformation.

Even after he announced he tested positive for coronavirus last Friday, Trump has not taken the virus any more seriously. Trump continued video shoots for his supporters even while hospitalized, where he had the luxury of being treated by a crew of doctors and was administered an experimental drug.

Risking the health of his own Secret Service agents for a photo op, he left the hospital to drive past his supporters. Since returning to the White House, he once again downplayed the disease that has killed over 1 million people globally.

"When he does things like that, it's going to have an effect that emboldens people to act dangerously and recklessly, and that because of that, there'll be even more empty seats at these Thanksgiving tables," Pijanowski said of Trump's photo-op.

"As somebody who's going to have an empty seat at his table — that's crushing."

In March, Pijanowski had called his dad to check in on him as he was living alone in the pandemic.

Pijanowski, who lives with his wife and son in Arkansas, at first didn't find it too odd that his dad didn't pick up the phone from his home in Buffalo, New York.

"He wasn't a guy that we normally were just concerned about," he said.

But he called again after an hour or two, and his dad still didn't pick up. He called his brother in Buffalo who went to check in on their dad and was shocked to find that he was on the floor.

His brother drove behind his dad who was carried away in an ambulance to the hospital. At the hospital, however, he was told that he was not allowed into the building, due to COVID-19 policies. Don's coronavirus test results came back positive, and John's brother went into quarantine.

The days that followed were "crushing" for Pijanowski. With none of the family members able to visit Don, the palliative care director at the hospital updated John and his three older brothers on their father's health.

Before Don was taken to the hospital, he told he first responders that he didn't know he should go, joking that "he hadn't been in the hospital since the day he was born," John said.

But the exhaustion, dehydration, and fatigue compounded and proved deadly. Ultimately, he slipped into a deep coma, and the hospital "made it clear that the only thing that was keeping him alive at that point was the ventilator," John said.

The family, he said, knew "that it was time for him to go."

None of these family members were there with Don in the last moments. The Pijanowski brothers asked the nurse to hold his hand and tell him that each of his boys loved him. Then the hospital relayed to them how that happened.

"It was all done by proxy," Pijanowski said.

The coronavirus took away John Pijanowski's dad. And he had to leave alone.

"I always knew that if my dad were in a situation where he was going to be in the hospital... I would drop everything and go up there and be with him," Pijanowski said. "To not be able to fulfill that duty [and] responsibility to him was incredibly disappointing."

Don was a giving member of the community, recalled John. After Don's wife died in 2007, he joined a community center that he treated "like a job." He would bring donuts and coffee to the center for the members. He collected puzzles to gift to a friend who was a wartime codebreaker.

"He was such a giving, social guy that it's hard to shake the idea that he deserved a better ending than to be alone like that," he said.

Months have passed since the pandemic began to sweep the nation. If the pandemic was taken more seriously early one, researchers stress that the US could have avoided the loss of many American lives.

"We don't have a way to beat this thing completely to the ground, but we have things that will save lives. We know what to do to make it better than it is," Pijanowski said.

"Strength comes from how you care for people around you," he added. "Strength doesn't come from being selfish, being greedy. "

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His dad died of COVID-19 alone in a hospital. He says it was 'painful to watch' the president drive-by his supporters while infected with the disease.