‘THIS COULD ... BE YOUR REALITY’
The wife of a retired state trooper who was unvaccinated and died has a message ...
“It was a combination of bad luck and the poor decision not to vaccinate sooner. Our biggest regret doesn’t need to be somebody else’s.” Christina Gendron
As retired state trooper Mark Gendron heroically battled the COVID-19 virus in July and August, his wife poured her heart out online, struggling with a painful choice her husband had made. He wasn’t vaccinated. “Would vaccination have stopped my husband from falling ill from this variant? Perhaps not. Would he be this sick had he been vaccinated? Statistics prove it would have been unlikely that he would have even needed to be hospitalized had he been vaccinated,’’ Christina Gendron posted on Facebook earlier this summer.
Mark Gendron, a Salem resident, died Tuesday, the Connecticut State Police said. He was 52. Gendron served as a patrol trooper, resident trooper and as a detective in the Casino Unit.
“It was a combination of bad luck and the poor decision not to vaccinate sooner,” Christina Gendron told The Day of New London. “Our biggest regret doesn’t need to be somebody else’s.”
According to data from the state Department of Public Health, people who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 have been about 10 times more likely to be hospitalized than those who have been vaccinated.
“There is no rhyme or reason as to why COVID hits some harder than others, but know that we never in our wildest dreams thought COVID would attack our family like this. We were worried about who we could carry COVID to and how that could impact our community,” Christina Gendron wrote on Facebook.
Mark Gendron tested positive in mid-july, beginning a journey of highs and lows and a reality his wife described as “hell.” Christina Gendron documented over a month full of heartbreak, worry and hope as she watched her husband slowly slip away. Her husband, a school resource officer, was a “healthy male who has asthma but no other co-morditities.”
“He was not vaccinated but planned to for the ‘fall wave’ after some vaccine hesitancy which developed from his own mother having a COVID-19 vaccine injury,” she said.
“We had chosen not to vaccinate yet. I was sick first and managed to be fine after about eight days. Three out of four kids in our household tested positive, all asymptomatic besides one who lost his sense of taste for 48 hours.”
“I will not go into what my plans are to vaccinate down the line for our children but I will tell you that my husband, should he be able to pull through, will vaccinate with zero hesitancy when he is eligible.”
Christina’s near-daily Facebook updates illustrated her husband’s fight with the virus, including emergency Lifestar trips, antibody treatments, paralysis and being told day after day that Mark just had to “get through the night.”
In late July, Mark was moved into the ICU to prepare for ventilation.
He would make improvements, sometimes for days at a time, until “things went backwards real quick overnight.” Regardless, the family never lost hope.
“Mark played this for me yesterday ... attempting to sing along here and there to change ‘Maria” to “Christina’... it was one or those moments I could have made a ‘tell me you had to fight back tears without telling me’ Tiktok,” Christine wrote on Facebook on July 26, posting a link to the song “My Maria” by Brooks and Dunn.
“Anyhow it was a very emotional few moments for us and I normally wouldn’t share this ... but this shows how hard he is fighting . ... Despite Mark living in his own personal hell right now, he just wanted me to know how much I was loved ... which is so selfless of him,” she said.
His condition continued to decline as an Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation machine pumped his blood, removing CO2 and sending oxygen-filled blood back into the body. The machine helps those on it to breathe, so the body can focus on healing.
On top of not being able to physically breathe on his own, Mark was soon eating from a feeding tube before he became sedated and medically-induced paralyzed.
“Prior to med delivery, his nurse encouraged me to talk to him loudly to see if I could get a reaction. I caressed his head while talking to him and he opened his eyes briefly. I told him how much the kids and I loved him and that he needed to keep fighting. I also told him about all of the love and support we are receiving and his eyes continued to flutter,” Christina Gendron said on July 30.
In an online post, she shared the loss of her husband to help unvaccinated individuals realize “this could also be your reality.”
“With me laying in his arms in the hospital bed, my husband gained his angel wings and left this Earth,” Christina Gendron said. “He put up such an amazing fight . ... his spirit was so strong and wanted to stay but his body simply had enough.”