By Lee Brown
The five-year-old daughter of two first responders has died in Michigan after a coronavirus infection left her likely brain-dead on a ventilator, her family says.
Little Skylar Herbert first complained a month ago about bad headaches — with COVID-19 causing a form of meningitis that caused swelling of her brain, her parents told the Detroit News.
“We decided to take her off the ventilator today because her improvement had stopped, the doctors told us that it was possible she was brain-dead,” her mother, LaVondria Herbert, told the paper Sunday.
“We basically just knew she wasn’t coming back to us,” said the 46-year-old mom, a Detroit cop for 25 years.
Skylar had initially tested positive for strep throat on March 23, with her pediatrician sending her home with antibiotics. But her parents took her to the ER after she stayed up “crying all night and saying the headache would not go away,” her mom recalled.
She was tested for COVID-19 at Beaumont Royal Oak, which came back positive the next day. The family returned the next day, this time because Skylar’s dad — Detroit fire-fighter Ebbie Herbert — showed symptoms of the bug. The youngster had a seizure while her father was being tested, and tests later revealed meningitis.
Her parents told the Detroit News they do not know how she became infected because she had stayed home for weeks and had no pre-existing conditions. Her father’s test came back inconclusive de-spite his symptoms, they say.
Skylar is the first child to have died of the contagion in Michigan, the paper says.
“The loss of a child, at any time, under any circumstances, is a tragedy,” a spokesman for Beaumont Health told the paper.
“We are heartbroken that COVID-19 has taken the life of a child. We extend our deepest sympathy to Skylar’s family and all others who have lost a loved one to this virus.”
