Kentish Express Ashford & District
Heartbreak as families mourn those lost to virus
A 39-year-old nurse is among those who have died from coronavirus.
Heartbroken colleagues and friends of Aimee O’Rourke said she “gave her all” to patients, as plans for a memorial in her memory were revealed.
Ms O’ Rourke worked in the acute medical unit at Margate’s QEQM hospital and was on the frontline in treating Covid-19 patients.
In Kent 89 people have died after contracting coronavirus, and this figure comes from deaths reported in hospitals.
The death toll in England now stands at 5,655.
Elsewhere, a woman spoke of the moment she was allowed to see her mother just before she died.
Carole Foster, 77, passed away at the Medway Maritime Hospital.
Her daughter, Tracey Bonfield, said: “I held her hand, I stroked her hair.
“To see someone in that state coughing and gasping for breath, it’s awful.”
Dave White, a supermarket store manager from Dartford, died last week.
His widow, Claire, had to tell the couple’s eight-yearold daughter, Megan what had happened and also urged people to take the lockdown rules seriously.
Herne Bay Football
Club revealed one of their stalwart members, Jim
Bubb, died after contracting coronavirus.
The 68-year-old also suffered with Parkinson’s disease and had lived in the town for 40 years.
Flowers were left outside a corner store after a shopkeeper succumbed to the virus. Adeola Onasanya ran Deola Food Store in Milton Regis.
Social media was flooded with tributes to “brilliant photographer” Richard Bass, from Tonbridge, who worked with many performing arts groups and schools.
Ben Brooker, a former student at Mandy Ellen Performing Arts, said: “Let this man’s and many other’s permanent absence be a lesson and reminder that coronavirus is by no means a joke and should be treated with the utmost of care.”
A 35-year-old man who worked as a delivery driver for Uber Eats in and around Maidstone was remembered as a “lovely hard-working man”.
A friend of Mushfiq Ahmed Chowdury, said he had bad asthma and was well known where he lived in Coxheath.