Bride-to-Be Who Was Hesitant of Vaccine Passes Away from COVID-19

A Kentucky woman who was hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine has died just weeks after she was supposed to get married.

Per an article published by NBC News this week, Samantha Wendell, a 29-year-old surgical technician from Grand Rivers, Kentucky, passed away September 10 from COVID-19 complications after she and her fiancé Austin Eskew tested positive for the virus.

Though she was supposed to wed Eskew on August 21 at a church in Lisle, Illinois — the same spot where her parents had married — Wendell will now have her funeral at that exact location.

According to Eskew, Wendell held off getting vaccinated because she “just kind of panicked” regarding false claims that the shots cause infertility. Eskew explained that the couple wanted to start a family as soon as they got married and hoped to have three, maybe four, children.

“Misinformation killed her,” Maria Vibandor Hayes said about her cousin. “If we can save more lives and families’ lives, then this is the gift that she left for us to deliver.”

Despite her initial hesitancy, Wendell decided to schedule a vaccine appointment for her and Eskew at the end of July — ahead of their planned honeymoon to Mexico.

Sadly, just a week before their appointment, Wendell and Eskew started feeling sick. Wendell had returned from her bachelorette party in Nashville, and was also busily preparing for her wedding.

“She could not stop coughing,” Eskew recounted.

Though he had a high fever, he was able to treat his symptoms at home. Unfortunately, a week into her illness, Wendell was forced to be hospitalized.

On August 16, just five days before her wedding date, Wendell was put on a ventilator. Last Friday, her loved ones made the decision to remove her from life support.

While speaking about her cousin, Vibandor Hayes remembers Wendell as someone who “gave the sweetest hugs” and was always laughing.

“Not being able to see that smile and hear that giggle was so gut-wrenching and traumatic. All I could repeat was, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’” Vibandor Hayes said about saying goodbye to Wendell via FaceTime before her death.

“She had so much influence in everything that I do,” Eskew added about his late fiancée. “We didn’t really ever do anything without the other in mind.”

Last month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) urged people who are pregnant or want to become pregnant to get vaccinated against COVID-19 as the shots are “safe and effective.”

“The vaccines are safe and effective, and it has never been more urgent to increase vaccinations as we face the highly transmissible Delta variant and see severe outcomes from COVID-19 among unvaccinated pregnant people,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a press release at the time.

Public health expert Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University, also told People earlier this week, “It is just not true that getting the COVID-19 vaccine is associated with infertility in either males or females.”

“In fact, we know that there are actually consequences, if somebody gets COVID-19, in terms of the impact on the male reproductive system,” she added, continuing, “There have been studies that have linked scrotal discomfort and low sperm count to having COVID-19. In addition, there has been an association between scrotal swelling and congestion to having COVID-19. So, to emphasize, these are not associated with the vaccine but with the disease.”