'Healthy' 10-Year-Old Dies Of COVID-19; Was Asked To Walk Sick Students To Nurse

KEY POINTS

The girl was admitted to the ICU days after she developed COVID-symptoms
Teresa Makenzie Sperry died shortly after hospitalization
She was recently assigned to walk sick children to the nurse's office

A healthy 10-year-old girl in Suffolk died of COVID-19 after she was assigned by her teacher to walk all sick students in the class to the nurse’s office, according to her mother.

Teresa Makenzie Sperry, a fifth-grader at Hillpoint Elementary School, developed a headache on Sept. 22, which lasted into the weekend. The girl’s condition grew worse on Sept. 26 when she began coughing and throwing up.

“I was trying to do chest compressions… I went in the room and she wasn’t breathing while I was on the phone,” Jeff Sperry, the victim’s father, told WAVY.

Teresa was admitted to an ICU unit at the Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters on Monday. She was pronounced dead shortly after 4.46 p.m., less than a week after she developed a headache.

“They came into room, and they told me it didn’t look good, and then I watched them do chest compressions and they had a defibrillator or taking turns and trying to bring her back,” Nicole, the 10-year-old’s mother, told the publication. “The doctor came in and said, ‘I’m sorry.’”

Nicole said she believes her daughter got infected with COVID-19 after her teacher, who was unnamed, assigned her to walk any sick student in class to the nurse’s office.

“Our daughter was perfectly healthy. And would have continued to be here if people would have stopped sending their sick kids to school,” Nicole wrote in a Facebook post.

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In a separate post, she also called out Suffolk Public Schools superintendent John B. Gordon III after he announced Teresa’s death in a letter published Tuesday but refused to name her. She also noted that Gordon did not contact her.

“This letter was shared by the superintendent of Suffolk public schools. I will share her name. Her name is Teresa Makenzie Sperry. I am her mother and this sorry excuse of a letter should not have been released without at least a phone call from him,” she wrote. My beautiful girl was taken from me because people are too damn selfish to care about what could happen to others.”

As of Sept. 23, the U.S. reported 5,725,680 COVID-19 cases in children and 498 deaths, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.