22-year-old dies with COVID-19, Georgia says. But local coroner says that’s not the cause.
A 22-year-old Muscogee County woman has died days after giving birth and testing positive for COVID-19, officials say.
She is the youngest person listed on the Georgia Department of Public Health’s COVID-19 Daily Status Report website as of 7 p.m. Saturday. She also was listed as having an underlying health condition.
But Muscogee County Coroner Buddy Bryan does not think the virus killed the young woman.
He said the woman tested positive this week the same day she had an emergency Cesarean section and gave birth to a baby girl.
Emergency personnel took the pregnant woman to the hospital twice before she gave birth, Bryan said, and she was sent home after the delivery.
“She had a couple of (coronavirus) symptoms during that period of time,” Bryan said. “She had a cough and a fever.”
She died April 10 at her home. Her mother found her unconscious on a bedroom floor, he said. First responders tried CPR, but to no avail.
When Bryan arrived on the scene to pronounce her dead, he said there was evidence she may have had a pulmonary embolism, which is a blockage of one of the pulmonary arteries by a blood clot that forms elsewhere in the body and travels to the lung.
The woman’s C-section might have caused the clot, and Bryan said he believes this or other complications from the surgery caused her death.
Bryan sent the woman’s body to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime lab Saturday morning so an official cause of death can be determined. An autopsy will be performed early next week and it could be several months before the results come back.
“Someone jumped the gun on this,” Bryan said. “I’d bet my house and all the money I have in the bank that the girl didn’t die from coronavirus. ...I don’t believe the cause of death is going to be the coronavirus. Now, they might list it as second and third. But the main cause of death is going to be different. I promise you.”
Coronavirus in Columbus
Muscogee County and its surrounding areas have 764 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, as of Saturday evening, according to data from state health department.
Muscogee County now reports 144 confirmed cases following the state’s 7 p.m. update.
Here’s a breakdown by county:
- Sumter 224
Muscogee 144
Randolph 103
Crisp 67
Troup 57
Dooly 40
Meriwether 23
Harris 19
Macon 19
- Clay 15
- Schley 12
Marion 10
Talbot 9
Taylor 7
Stewart 6
Quitman 3
Webster 3
Chattahoochee 3
A full county-by-county breakdown from the Georgia Department of Public Health can be found here. In Georgia, 432 people statewide have died from COVID-19.
Georgia’s West-Central Health District covers 16 counties: Chattahoochee, Clay, Crisp, Dooly, Harris, Macon, Marion, Muscogee, Quitman, Randolph, Schley, Stewart, Sumter, Talbot, Taylor and Webster.
Troup and Meriwether counties are not in the West-Central Health District but because of proximity to Columbus, the Ledger-Enquirer will track those numbers as well.
This story was originally published April 11, 2020 at 7:49 PM.