A 35-year-old woman in Portland died Friday of COVID-19 while on the waiting list for a last-resort treatment. Heather Greeley showed only minor symptoms during the first week of her infection, according to her fiancee Tyler Birkes, who also tested positive. When Greeley first had trouble breathing, Birkes took her to the ER in mid-August, but doctors did not admit her because she did not show any signs of pneumonia. Two days later, however, she could barely breathe at all, and Birkes rushed her back to the hospital. He said, “I got her in there, she was sitting in the wheelchair and they were admitting her and I rubbed her shoulders and I kissed her on the top of her head and told her I loved her and that’s the last time I saw her.” Greeley was on the waiting list for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment, a type of life support, when she succumbed to the virus. Birkes told local station KOIN, “Heather did everything right, she did everything she was supposed to do and is now suffering because people didn’t do their part.”
