Family urges others to get vaccinated after covid bride-to-be dies: ‘Misinformation killed her’

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After dating for over 10 years, Samantha Wendell and her fiance, Austin Eskew, were ready to settle down and have children.

After their engagement in 2019, the couple set a wedding date for August 21, 2021, at a church in Lisle, Ill., Where Wendell’s parents had married years earlier. They planned to start a family soon after.

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Wendell was anxious to have children, so when she heard false claims that the coronavirus vaccine could affect her fertility, she decided not to get the vaccine, her family members told NBC News. But over the summer, Wendell, a surgical technician in Grand Rivers, Ky., Changed her mind and made an appointment for a vaccine in late July. It was too late – a few days before the date, she and Eskew tested positive for the virus.

After a lengthy hospital stay, during which she was placed on a ventilator, Wendell died on September 10. She was 29 years old.

“The disinformation killed her,” wrote Maria Vibandor Hayes, Wendell’s cousin, in a Facebook post the next day.

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Wendell and Eskew met in 2010 during their college orientation at Olivet Nazarene University, a private Christian school in Illinois. They started dating in September, according to their wedding website.

After getting engaged, the two set out to plan their wedding and honeymoon in Mexico. Over the summer, her relatives hosted a bridal shower for Wendell, and in July, she and her friends traveled to Nashville for a bachelorette party.

Wendell and Eskew were supposed to get the shot later in the month, but a few days before she started to feel unwell. She couldn’t stop coughing, Eskew told NBC News. About a week after the onset of her symptoms, she went to the hospital for treatment.

As the wedding date approached, it became clearer that Wendell wouldn’t be able to make it down the aisle. Five days before the scheduled ceremony, doctors put her on a ventilator. Relatives have spoken to their followers on social media about the grim realities of his hospitalization for covid.

“Please consider getting the vaccine because I would never want family or friends to go through what is happening to my niece right now, as well as her family and friends,” the woman said. Wendell’s aunt, Denise Picicci, on Facebook. “No one can visit him, no one to hold his hand, talk to him and encourage him to fight this.”

Wendell never regained the ability to breathe on her own, NBC News reported, and on September 10, her family made the difficult choice to take the life support away from her.

On Saturday, her funeral was held at Trinity Lutheran Church, where she and Eskew planned to be married.

Eskew told NBC News his fiancee had “just freaked out a bit” about the unproven claims that the coronavirus vaccine could affect her ability to have children.

Misinformation linking the vaccine to infertility has proliferated on social media, and to date, only 25% of pregnant Americans have received at least one injection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But CDC officials say there is no evidence to show the coronavirus vaccine causes fertility problems – the agency recommends that those who are pregnant or trying to become pregnant get vaccinated.

Wendell’s relatives hope her death will encourage those who are reluctant to get vaccinated. Several people have already done so, wrote Wendell’s mother Jeaneen Wendell in a Facebook comment.

“I can’t tell you how many people have told me they’ve been vaccinated because they’ve heard of Samantha. Her life made sense,” she wrote last week. “Even though there were only a few who were vaccinated, it does mean something.”