A beloved teacher in Broward dies after fighting COVID for 111 days
The faculty and students at David Posnack Jewish Day School in Davie were looking forward to April 14, when they planned to celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Day of Independence.
Instead, they mourned the loss of a beloved teacher, Adam Fraum, who died that Wednesday at age 34 after getting COVID-19 in late December.
“All who knew Adam felt his joy and spark of positive energy every time you were in his presence,” Richard Cuenca, Posnack’s head of school, said in a statement
A representative from the school said Monday that Fraum worked there for six years and taught performing and visual arts.
His family could not be reached for comment.
According to information his mother wrote on a GoFundMe account set up to help pay his funeral expenses, Fraum was admitted to Coral Springs Medical Center on Dec. 24 with COVID-related pneumonia. Doctors placed him on a ventilator two weeks later because he had respiratory failure.
On Jan. 9, he was transferred to Broward Health Medical Center because his condition continued to deteriorate, his mother said. Doctors placed him in a drug-induced coma, a state in which he remained for more than two months, his mother Theresa Hind wrote.
When he woke up, he recognized his family and friends and communicated by lip-reading, Hind said.
“In the weeks following, Adam required a total of three chest tubes because his lungs were collapsing due to the damage that COVID-19 caused,” she wrote.
Last Wednesday, doctors called Fraum’s family to tell them his respiratory health was rapidly declining.
“His fiancée, Katie, was able to get to the hospital that afternoon to speak with Adam and he told her, ‘I’m going to fight this, I’m coming home to Christopher and to you,’ ” Hind wrote. Christopher is Fraum’s 4-year-old son.
Three hours later, however, doctors called Fraum’s family to tell them to come to the hospital because he was not improving.
He died later that day.
“After 111 days in the hospital, countless close calls, proving doctors wrong and being their ‘miracle,’ he is no longer suffering,” Hind wrote.
Fraum’s family held his funeral, via Zoom, Monday. Shiva services were scheduled, also on Zoom, for Tuesday and Wednesday, according to his obituary.
Star of David Memorial Gardens Cemetery and Funeral Chapel is handling arrangements.
The story originally identified Theresa Hind as Adam Fraum’s friend. She is his mother.
This story was originally published April 19, 2021 at 3:19 PM.
