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Struggling to breathe and visibly exhausted lying in a hospital bed, Megan Alexandra Blankenbiller begged her followers in her latest TikTok video last month to get the shot. She hadn’t – and nine days after the publication of the final video, she passed away.
“I don’t have a lot of energy to speak,” said Blankenbiller, who was passing by Alex, in the final video, posted Aug. 15. “… I didn’t get the vaccine. I’m not anti-vax, I was just trying to do my research. I was scared.
Blankenbiller, who lived in Jacksonville, Florida, said she waited to get the shot because she wanted her and her family to all get the shots at the same time. This decision, she said, “was a mistake.”
“I shouldn’t have waited,” she said in the video, which has been viewed nearly 900,000 times. “If you’re 70% sure you want the vaccine, go get it. Don’t wait. Go get it, because I hope if you get it you don’t end up in the hospital like me.”
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Blankenbiller was hospitalized on the morning of August 13, just two days before her last video. That day, she posted a TikTok of herself logged into monitors. Screams could be heard in the background.
A day later, from the hospital bed, she urged her supporters to “just take care of yourself” and not delay getting the vaccine because of other people.
“All I have heard are the moans and screams of people in pain,” she said. “I guess people have lost people they love.”
Exactly a week after Blankenbiller’s hospitalization, her younger sister wrote on Facebook that she was in “critical” condition and had been placed on a ventilator. She died the next day, according to her family.
Blankenbiller’s sister Cristina Blankenbiller told WebMD that their family finally agreed to be vaccinated, but shortly before their date they all fell ill.
A friend of Blankenbiller posted on Facebook that she was “one of the nicest people” the friend had worked with. The two were part of the Jax Treblemakers, an A capella group from Jacksonville.
“As soon as she walked into a rehearsal, that rehearsal became a party,” her friend wrote. “She was only 31 years old and she passed away from Covid. 31. She spent her last days begging people to get vaccinated on a hospital bed. I’m so tired of losing people to it. of that damn virus. ”
Florida has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the United States, with more than 583,000 in the past 28 days alone, according to Johns Hopkins University. Duval County, where Jacksonville is located, is among the top 10 counties in the state for number of cases.
First published on September 10, 2021 / 7:26 a.m.
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