COLUMBIA, S.C. — An ER nurse that works at a Midlands hospital is urging South Carolinians to stay vigilant against COVID-19 so they don't experience a loss like his.
Phillip Mobley described his mother, Helga Mobley, as a "go-getter." He said he caught her on a ladder once, cleaning out her gutters when she was "70-something-years-old."
But that's just who she was: A fighter, even during her three-and-a-half-week battle with COVID-19 alone in the hospital.
“No visitors on the COVID floors," Mobley recalled. "It kind of made me mad because I work in the emergency room at the hospital and I couldn’t even see my own mother.”
As an ER nurse at Lexington Medical Center, Mobley got daily updates on his mom’s condition. Then, doctors said she needed to be intubated.
Although he wasn't able to see his mother during her hospitalization, Mobley said he was able to go up and talk to her to explain what the doctors were saying and ease her mind. Once he did, he remembered that she looked up at him from the hospital bed and said, "let's do it."
Holding back tears, Mobley shared that it was the last thing his mother ever said to him.
Mobley lost his mother to the virus on January 30, 2021.
"My mom was my everything,” he told News19 while choking up.
It’s an unbearable loss for him and his siblings – something he thinks maybe could’ve been avoided if the vaccine was available. When Mobley's mother was sick, the vaccines were just rolling out to healthcare workers, and not available to the public.
"There are a lot of people out there that don’t think [COVID-19] is real and it is real," Mobley said sternly. "People die from it and there are vaccines available that will help."
Mobley hopes his mom’s story will inspire others to get vaccinated, so they don’t have to spend the next holiday season grieving, like him and his siblings.
Earlier this week, the U.S. reached a grim milestone: 800,000 lives lost due to the coronavirus. Here in the state, DHEC reported Friday, Dec. 17 that nearly 14,500 South Carolinians have died from COVID-19 complications.
To find a vaccine clinic near you, DHEC has a locator on their website.