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Raleigh, North Carolina – Jan Liggins monitors the coronavirus on a daily basis statistics in North Carolina, wondering what might have been if the pandemic hadn’t been so severe.
“I always look at that number when it comes on TV, but I’m like, ‘It should be one less. It should be 10 less, “Liggins said.” This pandemic didn’t have to go that far if people could do the right things and continue to be safe.
North Carolina passed 10,000 deaths in the pandemic on Tuesday. Liggins’ father, Ricky David Liggins, 70, was one of them.
“I never thought that would happen to us,” said Jan Liggins. “It’s the first thing you think of. You never think it’s going to happen to you or your family.
Ricky Liggins joined the Marine Corps Reserves and became a Raleigh Police Officer, where he eventually became a senior officer and served on the SWAT team.
“He loved working with people and he thought it would be a good opportunity to help others,” said his wife, Deborah Liggins, of his career in law enforcement. “‘He felt like it was a call. He loved it.”
The couple met in their teens on a blind date for a dance at the National Guard armory in Zebulon and married in August 1969.
“Growing up we did pretty much everything together, and it was fun. It was so much fun,” Jan Liggins said of the tight-knit family.
Ricky Liggins continued the close family ties with his only granddaughter, Adriana Liggins.
“He was so close to her. He would take her shopping and eating and everything,” Deborah Liggins said.
“I used to call her every night before I went to bed,” said Adriana Liggins, now a 21-year-old dance student at Meredith College.
“He didn’t miss any of my dance recitals, even Meredith,” she said. “After [each], he’d be like, ‘Oh, you did so well.’ “
Ricky Liggins, who retired from the Raleigh Police Department in 2000, thought he had the flu last fall but then started coughing up blood. His wife took him to WakeMed.
“Of course I couldn’t come in, and that was the last time I saw him until he passed away,” she said. “It was a terrible, terrible experience.”
Tests showed he had coronavirus and his symptoms were so severe that he ended up on a ventilator in the intensive care unit.
“I think it was such a shock to him because he had always been so healthy,” Deborah Liggins said. “He said to me, ‘I’m not supposed to be here.’ He took his vitamins, he worked, he exercised regularly, he ate well. “
When the family was able to speak with him on the phone, conversations were brief due to his difficulty in breathing, she said.
“I never knew anything about his feelings and what was going on with him,” his wife said. “I still had hopes [for recovery]. She was the strongest person I have ever known. He was never afraid of anything, and he was like my Superman, my hero. “
But then Ricky Liggins suffered a stroke linked to the virus and a neurologist told the family to prepare for the worst.
He said, ‘If he succeeds – and I really don’t think he will – he’ll never know who you are. He will need 24 hour care, “” Deborah Liggins said.
She knew he wouldn’t want to be on life support, so she, her daughter, and granddaughter then donned protective gear to briefly visit him in the ICU and say goodbye.
Ricky Liggins passed away on November 4.
“He fought. He fought hard,” Deborah Liggins said.
Raleigh Police officers saluted the flag-draped casket when it was buried at the Gethsemane Memorial Gardens in Zebulon.
“He’s buried with his flip phone,” Adriana Liggins said of the phone he used to call her all the time. “It was taped. He loved his flip phone.”
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