‘It just took her so fast’
Lincoln-Way East High School senior Sarah Simental turned 18 in November
Just days before Christmas, 18-year-old Sarah Simental, a senior at Lincoln-Way East High School, complained to her mom of suffering from a mild headache and congestion.
“We thought it was a cold,” her mom, Deborah Simental, said Tuesday.
This past Sunday, surrounded by her family, the Tinley Park teen who loved animals and volunteered at a pet rescue died at the University of Chicago Medical Center, with COVID-19 having brought on respiratory failure.
“She was a healthy young lady who had just turned 18 in November and had the world in her hands,” her mother said.
Simental said as her daughter’s symptoms worsened she took her Dec. 23 to Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox, from where the girl was airlifted to the University of Chicago.
Her death was ruled natural as a result of acute hypoxic respiratory failure due to COVID-19 infection, with non-traumatic cerebral hemorrhages as a contributing factor, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
“It just took her so fast,” her mother said, noting her daughter had no underlying health problems.
While the coronavirus is more a concern for the elderly or those with health problems such as diabetes, Simental said she felt it was important to publicize that it can bring down young people such as her daughter.
“Sarah is an example that it can happen to the youngest and healthiest people,” she said. “This is real.”
She said her 20-year-old son had contracted the virus at the end of August and had mild symptoms. Simental said the family was proactive in taking precautions, and they had recently gotten flu shots.
Visitation will be held from 3 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, limited to 10 people at a time, at Lawn Funeral Home, 7732 W. 159th St., Orland Park. Services and internment will be private.
Simental said her daughter loved animals and volunteered, before the pandemic, at a pet rescue at Alsip Home & Nursery in Frankfort.
“She wanted to bring several dogs home,” Simental said.
Simental said she is allergic to dog fur and they needed a dog that didn’t shed, and that their Goldendoodle, Bailey, is hypoallergenic.
In lieu of flowers, the family is asking that donations be made to animal shelter PAWS of Tinley Park.