Ashley Gomez loved looking after people. For the past twelve years she has worked as a nurse and has greatly enjoyed helping her patients thrive. Recently, the 30-year-old mother of six worked in the care of a congregation in a Los Angeles neighborhood. Her selflessness was one reason she did not seek treatment when she first developed COVID-19 symptoms. She wanted to make sure that those who were seriously ill received help before her.
“She just cared about others. She waited to go to the hospital herself. She’s like, ‘Mom, there could be a bed for someone who needs it more than I do,’ ‘her mother, Veronica Gornick, said TODAY. ‘But she got so bad with her breathing, oh woe. By the fifth day, I had convinced her to go. ”
On December 18, Gomez, who was 37 weeks pregnant, went to the hospital. and shortly thereafter gave birth to baby Corey by caesarean section. While feeling better after delivery, her breathing deteriorated and she was put in a ventilator. After two weeks she died.
“It’s devastating,” Gornick said. “It’s just amazing. What a wonderful person she was from the inside out. ‘
Problems with breathing and fever
The family (including Gornick and her husband) do not know how they contracted COVID-19. While Gomez worked during the pandemic, she had a lot of personal protective equipment. Yet, like anyone, she was afraid she might catch the coronavirus, even if she traveled to the grocery store.
“She was a little worried, but I would say she thought she was going to recover,” Gornick said. “She was very strong.”
No one else in their family has developed such severe symptoms as Gomez. She was struggling to breathe and had a fever. Five days after her first symptoms, she was taken to the hospital where staff tried to help her breathe and control her fever. They discovered that she had a urinary tract infection and also started treating it. They hoped that fighting the infection would lower her fever as well.
As she got worse, doctors performed an emergency ward to give birth to her sixth son, Corey. She got a look at him before doctors pulled him away. The baby is doing well and has never contracted COVID-19. After delivery, Gomez seemed to improve.
“She sent an SMS: ‘I’m fine. I feel so much better, ” Gornick said. “I was like, ‘Oh, thank God. “I said, ‘Take it easy.’ ‘
But that night her breathing deteriorated and doctors intubated her.
“She was gone,” Gornick said. “The machines kept her alive.”
But they would hear reports that would give them hope, like when she was less dependent on the machines. Doctors suspected the UTI had caused another infection and they were not sure where it was. Yet they tried to treat it. But the family received a call in early January that made them realize that Gomez would never recover.
“Overnight she got 109 fever and the fever shut her down,” Gornick said. “The doctors were like, ‘She’s dying. Her organs go silent. “She was on dialysis and a ventilator, and then her heart weakened. ‘
The next day, the hospital called Gornick and Gomez’s husband and asked them to come back to say goodbye to Gomez. As they sat next to her bed, Gomez stopped breathing and the staff tried to revive her.
“It was so hard for her,” Gornick recalls. “The doctor says, ‘We can continue to do this, or we’ll stop in peace.’ … I’m facing the hard decision. ‘
Shortly afterwards, Gomez passed away on January 3rd.
‘Terrible, devastating’
Gomez loved being a mother to her five sons, Ryan (11), Jacob (9), Zachary (8), Maverick (2) and Jordan (1). She never really met Corey. Her family remembers how she housed with the boys and practiced baseball with them.
“They broke down when their father told them. It was horrible, devastating, “Gornick said. ‘(Jacob) was like,’ Sunshine, why did my mother have to go? Why? ‘and it’s so hard. I’m like ‘Honey, we’re all here, but moms in your heart. ‘
Two of her children have another father who has passed away. Gomez and her husband divorced but remarried. Gornick said the family hopes the boys can stay together.
“We have to keep those boys together. They love each other so much and look like each other and are dependent on each other every day, ”she said. “We can face challenges.”
The family struggles to lose Gomez.
“It’s hard. “Each of us is grieving differently at the moment and it is so difficult because we all love her so much,” Gornick said. “COVID took her from us.”
The family has set up a GoFundMe to raise money for her sons and is close to the goal. Gornick hopes Gomez’s story will encourage people to do their part to protect others from COVID-19.
What a wonderful, smart, loving, helpful person she was. That’s not fair. She did not deserve it, “said Gornick. “I wish people would take the pandemic seriously and wear their masks and social distance, because COVID is there and it’s terrible.”