Couple together 57 years until coronavirus killed him
Richard and Sheila Curren didn’t think much of it, at first: ‘He was just sick, and you don’t immediately run to the ER,’ said their daughter. But by the wee hours of Monday, Richard, 77, was dead of COVID-19.
It took only days for the coronavirus to claim the life of Richard Curren.
Curren, and his wife, Sheila Curren, had been “living their lives” at the Atria Willow Wood assisted living facility in Fort Lauderdale when Curren became ill on a Wednesday a week and a half ago. He felt weak. He began to have trouble breathing.
The Currens didn’t think much of it, at first: “He was just sick, and you don’t immediately run to the ER,” said their daughter, Tracy Curren Wieder.
But by the wee hours of Monday morning, the burly 77-year-old was gone.
Curren was the first of two elders whose deaths at the care center have been linked to the coronavirus. At least five other residents of the center have tested positive were hospitalized, making the home a hot spot and an echo of the nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, where earlier in the global pandemic 26 people died, at least 13 of whom tested positive for the virus.
Results were pending on six other Atria resi
dents.
At a Friday afternoon press briefing in Tallahassee, Gov. Ron DeSantis lashed out over the problems at Atria. “Construction workers, staff and cooks who were not screened were allowed to go and mix with the residents unimpeded,” he said. “That is exactly what you are not supposed to do.”
The Atria outbreak is a grim reminder: Though elders and disabled people seek safety and protection at long-term facilities, nursing homes and ALFs also can be hotbeds of contagion.
“We remain in close coordination with the [state] Department of Health throughout the day,” Yunia Gonzelez, Atria’s senior vice president, said Friday. “We continue to take all necessary precautions as advised by health officials.”
There are 691 licensed nursing homes in Florida, representing about 84,448 beds — and another 3,080 licensed ALFs, representing about 106,103 beds.
As of this past Wednesday, 19 long-term care facilities had either suspected or confirmed cases of the infection, said Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Mary Mayhew.
Mayhew declined to say whether all residents and staff at affected homes would be tested. “When a call is made by a facility, and they are coordinating with their local county health department, there is an immediate effort to support them to ensure that that individual is tested,” Mayhew said.
Originally from Chicago, Richard and Sheila Curren — married 57 years when he died — relocated to Miami Beach in 2012 to be close to their daughter and two grandchildren, Sheila Curren, 76, said. “We never had any big dream of retiring to Florida,” she said. “It just kind of happened.”
The couple’s next big move — the relocation about seven years later to Atria Willow Wood, 2855 W. Commercial Blvd. — was similarly unplanned, said their daughter. It became necessary after Richard Curren cracked his ribs during a fall, and Wieder became increasingly incapable of caring for her parents.
“It got to where I did not feel they were safe,” Wieder said.
“They were living their lives” at the 180-bed home, Wieder said. “And then he got sick.”
When Curren’s respiratory problems worsened two days in, the couple called for paramedics, and he was transported to Holy Cross Hospital for evaluation. The former travel agent had suffered from respiratory problems in the past, and at first, family members weren’t overly concerned.
But by last Sunday, Curren’s condition had not improved. He had been diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia, Wieder said. He was running a fever of 103 degrees. And his body’s oxygen levels were getting dangerously low. Curren was getting fluids intravenously, along with antibiotics. Hospital staff inserted a breathing tube.
But when Wieder asked her father’s doctor to have him tested for COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, the doctor declined. “She said he was not a candidate,” said
Wieder, 50. “She kept asking if he’d been to China.”
“We don’t believe he meets the criteria to be tested,” the doctor said, according to Wieder.
By Sunday evening, though, doctors had reconsidered. Curren was tested, and then moved over to isolation, where medical staff wore protective garb and masks, Wieder said.
At around 10 p.m. Sunday, the results were back. Wieder said hospital staff called the health department and the ALF to report the positive test results.
But not her family.
“Six hours later, he died,” she said. “At that point, they did call me.”
The hospital said that Richard Curren had gone into cardiac arrest at about 4 a.m., Wieder said. “They said they tried for 35 minutes to revive him. ‘And, by the way, are you aware he tested positive for COVID?’ ”
“God only knows how many infections were caused by not putting him in isolation and testing him immediately,” said Wieder, who oversees laboratory research at the University of Miami and published an article on lab safety this past week in Clinical Lab Manager, an online magazine.
Broward health officials urged Wieder and her mother to get tested, Wieder said. But both women, along with one of Wieder’s children, were isolating themselves at Wieder’s Miami-Dade home to protect others.
Meanwhile, Wieder was suddenly tasked with preparing her father’s funeral. “We’re going to do something very private and very meaningful,” she said.
Mary Ellen Klas of the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau, and Miami Herald staff writer Michelle Marchante contributed to this report.
CONSTRUCTION WORKERS, STAFF AND COOKS WHO WERE NOT SCREENED WERE ALLOWED TO GO AND MIX WITH THE RESIDENTS UNIMPEDED.
Gov. Ron DeSantis