Arnold Herrera passed away on Sunday at UI Health. His family members said he had no underlying conditions of which they were aware, and they remain dumbfounded at how quickly his condition worsened.
Herrera was a helper for whom the air was indeed the limit.
“A lot of energy, just … ‘I’m going to do it because I’m going to do it,’ because I can do it. The ‘I can’ attitude,” said his brother, Pablo Portilla.
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Arnold’s brother said his younger brother and sister never saw a problem he was not trying to fix – even in the garage where he was working on cars to work.
But on Saturday, Herrera’s giving spirit was taken by COVID-19.
“I kept praying that he would get better because I knew he was always strong,” Portilla said. “It was not in God’s plan.”
Pablo said Arnold was diagnosed last week and that he is recovering at home, but his condition worsened hours after he rang in the new year.
“He told us ‘Happy New Year,’ and unfortunately we only had a full day of complications,” Portilla said. “He was in pain, and we took him to the hospital, and that’s it.”
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Arnold plays guitar at his church in Little Village and graduated from Benito Juarez High School, where he was active in the junior ROTC program.
His death comes with a warning that his family hopes others will heed it.
“It does not discriminate on age. It just happens. And we all have to be careful. We must not think, ‘Oh yeah, because I’m young, it’s not going to happen to me,’ like no, ‘” Portilla said.
Arnold Herrera would have turned 20 in March. According to records, he is the eleventh person in Illinois under the age of 20 to die from COVID-19.
Pablo Portilla accepts donations in memory of his brother on GoFundMe.
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