PICKENS COUNTY, Ga. — For 11 days, Samantha Cook was intubated at Piedmont Mountainside in Jasper, Georgia.
She was fighting COVID-19.
Those are days her mother, Brigitte will never forget.
Brigitte told 11Alive two days after Samantha was admitted to the Pickens County medical facility, she started crashing.
“I called her daddy at work and said, 'you’ve got to come home. They won’t let you in the hospital, but you’ve got to come home',” Brigitte recalled.
Thankfully, the team at Piedmont Mountainside stabilized her again.
But a few days later, Brigitte and her own father - Samantha’s grandfather - had to be admitted. Three members of one family, all fighting the same battle.
“I said, 'this is the one time that being a close family didn’t pay off for all of us',” Bridget jested.
She added that they all live on the same property, which is how they - and likely a few other family members - got sick.
But their symptoms were different - more digestive issues and aches - rather than respiratory distress. But since Samantha had asthma, Brigitte said that’s why she was hit the worst.
She added that this experience has changed the way she sees and fears this virus.
“The week before she got sick, I said the words out loud ‘I’m not getting on this crazy train for Covid,’ and I am like the conductor of the train now," Brigitte said.
After coming out the other side, she said she started cleaning mail that comes in, not going out and giving thanks they all made it home alive.
“Most thankful that God put us at Piedmont with the right doctors that can take care of us,” she said.
