He caught COVID-19 on a cruise ship. His family had to say goodbye over speakerphone
His family said goodbye over speakerphone.
They told him they loved him, and they thanked him for being a great husband, father and grandfather. Then they waited for COVID-19 to shut down down the rest of Tom Sheehan’s organs. On Saturday, he died at Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
Sheehan is one of the more than 50 Floridians who’ve died after catching the novel coronavirus, a count expected to climb steeply in the coming weeks.
Three weeks ago, 69-year-old Sheehan was boarding the Costa Luminosa in Port Everglades with his wife, excited for a grand adventure cruising to Italy, Spain and France. But even from the beginning, coronavirus loomed over their trip.
When the Luminosa, owned by Miami-based Carnival Corp., arrived in Puerto Rico three days later, an elderly Italian couple was rushed from the ship to a hospital. Both tested positive for COVID-19. The woman, Puerto Rico’s first case, has since died.
Passengers said the cruise officials didn’t let them know about the sick people until they were out at sea again the next day.
“If the ship had told everyone what was going on, my dad and stepmom would have gotten off in Puerto Rico and flown home,” said Kevin Sheehan, Tom’s son. “But they didn’t tell them. So they stayed on the ship.”
The ship couldn’t make its planned next stop in Antigua, so it continued across the Atlantic for a full week with no stops. Passengers were allowed unfettered access to the pools, gym and buffet the entire time, even after news broke at the end of the week about the positive test results.
Coronavirus spreads on board
The next day, March 15, the ship unloaded three more sick passengers in the Canary Islands but did not allow any other passengers off the ship — even the Miami couple who wrote the captain a letter begging to be released. That couple, Barbara, 46, and Emilio Hernandez, 51, has since tested positive for COVID-19.
As the ship neared the islands, Sheehan got cellphone service again. With it came anxious messages from his children about the rapid spread of the virus. Sheehan had respiratory issues already, so he started to worry when he began having trouble breathing.
“We think at that point my father had already been exposed,” said Kevin Sheehan. “He thought his bronchitis was coming back. We realize now the virus had got him.”
On March 19, the ship docked in Marseille, France and unloaded more than 600 passengers. At that point, 36 of the 75 people officials tested had COVID-19.
They were bunched in tight groups getting off the ship, crammed onto buses and held for hours before 300 Americans and Canadian finally boarded a flight to Atlanta Friday morning. Three of those passengers aboard the flight — two Floridians and one person from Massachusetts — had tested positive.
The flight itself was a “horrible nightmare,” one passenger said. Sick and elderly people were passing out mid-flight, and their fellow passengers tried to help them without infecting themselves.
Once in Atlanta, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agents greeted the passengers, but they only checked people’s temperatures and asked basic questions about recent symptoms before allowing everyone free rein in the busiest airport in the world.
“The CDC wasn’t prepared to test,” Kevin Sheehan said. “They were not made aware there were COVID patients on the flight.”
His father and stepmother, along with another couple they traveled with, arrived home in Sarasota exhausted and sick on Friday evening, March 20. Tom’s breathing was ragged and he’d lost about 20 pounds. They all went to the hospital the next day, where they were tested for the coronavirus.
Tom and his wife, Jill, tested positive. Jill was sent home to quarantine, and Kevin Sheehan said she’s doing better now. The couple they traveled with are both sick, but only the husband was tested for COVID-19; he was positive.
Tom never left the hospital.
“He was terrified,” his son said. “In one of his lasts texts to my sister, he said ‘if I caught this virus I’m dead.’ And he was right.”
‘I beg you to do what is right’
That was the final day his family could communicate with him. The next day he was put on a ventilator, a machine that helps someone breathe, and given powerful paralyzing sedatives. No visitors allowed.
Friday evening, one of the nurses helped family members say their goodbyes over the phone. Kevin said he hoped his dad could hear them.
A funeral is out of the question. Any memorial service will have to be postponed, Kevin said.
“There’s nothing we can do,” he said. “They’re not essential businesses.”
Kevin, who runs a sales business in Sarasota, said he decided to post an obituary for his father on Facebook, which he rarely uses. Before he retired, Tom had a long career with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and was a lifelong prankster with a deep love for science fiction.
Kevin said he hoped the post will make people pay attention to the crisis unfolding around the world and understand its human toll.
“I beg you all to do what is right and only go out when it is necessary, as this crisis is only going to get worse,” he wrote.
He’s tired of seeing people party on the beach and ignore government warnings. He wants them to know what it’s like to have a family member die when you can’t even visit them in the hospital, or to have loved ones isolated in their homes where you can’t hug them or see them.
“This is a very lonely virus,” he said.
Miami Herald reporter Taylor Dolven contributed to this story.
This story was originally published March 28, 2020 at 2:48 PM with the headline "He caught COVID-19 on a cruise ship. His family had to say goodbye over speakerphone."
