TRAGIC

Family of Dead Alabama Man Urges People to Get Vaxxed After 43 Overfilled ICUs Rejected Him

Ray Martin DeMonia suffered a cardiac event last week and had to be transferred to a Mississippi hospital—almost 200 miles away from his home.

An Alabama man just days away from his 74th birthday died last week after 43 hospitals in three states couldn’t accept him due to overfilled ICUs. Now his family is encouraging people to get vaccinated. Ray Martin DeMonia suffered a cardiac event last week, and after his family tried to get him a bed at a variety of hospitals, staff at an Alabama hospital managed to find him a one at a Mississippi hospital—almost 200 miles from his home. “In honor of Ray, please get vaccinated if you have not, in an effort to free up resources for non-COVID related emergencies,” his family wrote in his obituary. “He would not want any other family to go through what his did.”

In Alabama, there were 60 more patients than there were ICUs as of Thursday. Over half were positive with COVID-19, according to USA Today—a deadly example of the Delta variant’s rise.