He didn’t want the jab... now my super-fit twin is dead at 42
THE heartbroken twin sister of a ‘super-fit’ father who refused the Covid jab last night urged the public to get vaccinated after he died within a month of contracting the virus.
Mother-of-two Jenny McCann said her brother John Eyers regularly took part in infamously challenging ‘ironman’ competitions and was a keen mountain climber and bodybuilder.
But because the 42-year-old was so fit he wrongly believed he would only suffer a ‘mild illness’ if he caught coronavirus. However, Mrs McCann says her family has now been left devastated after the father-of-one died last week.
She said: ‘He was the fittest, healthiest person I know. He was climbing Welsh mountains and wild camping four weeks before his death. The only pre-existing health condition he had was the belief in his own immortality. He thought if he contracted Covid-19 he would be OK. He thought he would have a mild illness. He didn’t want to put a vaccine in his body.’
When Mrs McCann was called up for the jab in May, Mr Eyers – from Southport, Merseyside – declined.
He died exactly a month after testing positive following an infection and organ failure. Mrs McCann, who lives in north-west London, said that prior to being placed on a ventilator, her brother told doctors he wished he had been inoculated.
She said medical staff ‘threw everything’ at her twin – a building firm product specialist – who was ‘pumped full of every drug in the hospital’ to try and save him. But it was not enough.
Mrs McCann added: ‘Before he was ventilated he told his consultant he wished he had been vaccinated. That he wished he had listened. His death is a tragedy. It shouldn’t have happened. He leaves a mum and dad, a sister, and a 19-year-old daughter.’
Paying tribute, one friend Linda Rowney said: ‘To say I am extremely upset is an understatement. Please get vaccinated, it might save your life.’ Another friend, Penny Arque, said news of Mr Eyers’s death had prompted her to get the jab.