Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutual, providing more than one point four million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at Medd Mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of PorterWright Morris and Arthur LLP.

Now, with eight locations across the country, PorterWright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community, Morad PorterWright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association, representing 100 24000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at O H E A dot org.

It was one year ago that the covid pandemic hit home the state's first death from the disease.

This weekend, the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio on Karen Kasler.

One year ago this week, restaurants and bars in Ohio were shut down that entertainment venues and barbershops and salons.

Then the polls were closed and the primary became mail in voting only then on March 20th, the first covid death in Ohio.

Now there are more than eighteen thousand Ohioans who have died.

We remember some of those husbands and wives, parents and grandparents, siblings and loved ones, with the words of those who knew them best.

As told to my statehouse news bureau colleague Jo Ingles, the state's first coronaviruses death was someone a lot of people knew, including Governor Mike DeWine, Mark Wagner, senior prominent attorney in Toledo, someone who had been on the board of elections.

Someone had been prominent in the Republican Party.

Nick was very well respected.

Nick son Mark is a former state lawmaker.

He says his dad's interests went far beyond politics.

He went to college at Ohio, northern, where he played varsity football.

He was a starting running back for Ohio.

Northern ran on their track team, ran the 100 meter dash and somehow found his way on to the Ohio northern hockey team as well.

So he had seven grandkids and their number one fan was my dad.

Who was their grandpa?

Who was that?

Everything.

Always checking in with them, always making sure that they had what they needed.

Having fun with Wagner had had pneumonia.

So when he fell ill a few weeks later, covid wasn't suspected.

At first.

He went into the hospital to get treated for what we thought was pneumonia.

And it was the day he went into the hospital was the very day they started implementing all the covid protocols.

So it was the very first day where you couldn't go visit in the hospital, right.

Where you had to wear mask wherever you want.

So it was a really surreal experience because typically when your dad's in the hospital, you have a chance to go see him and spend some time with them.

We could just text each other video chat and things like that.

It was a difficult time for the family because Dad was really the glue that kept us together.

And it was a tough, tough couple of days.

A bagert of Columbus was sick for months before he lost his battle with covid for an 82 year old, this man literally could do anything like still practiced law up until the day he got sick, was traveling the world.

Had they had a trip, I think, to Prague booked for either like I think in April of last year, like nothing scared him, including the virus, but it eventually caught up with them.

He called me on August twenty first and he said I tested positive for the virus.

And I was like, what?

David said his dad seemed to be weathering it OK. At first it was around day nine that he crashed and his blood pressure plummeted.

David said his dad was in the ICU for three weeks, but that well enough to come home for one day, only to be returned to the ICU less than 24 hours later.

Then in October, Abe's condition worsened.

Everything plummeted.

All his numbers, his oxygen levels dropped substantially.

They took him back to the ICU.

And at that point he was pretty upset that I think he knew he wasn't going to make it.

Abe was put on a ventilator.

He got an infection in his intestines and colon.

He had surgery.

He survived that surgery.

But he which was good, but he never got better.

I just said it's time to keep his hands are turning blue like he's going to suffocate.

David was at his dad's bedside on the 30th of October when it became clear he wasn't going to recover.

Bob Burns was a former volunteer firefighter, a reserve captain for the Stark County Sheriff's Office, and worked as a juvenile corrections officer at Indian River Schools for twenty nine years.

He taught me that good leaders listen first, they talk second, and they always eat last.

He just was very blunt.

He was a very black and white person and he didn't mind telling you what he thought, even though we very rarely ever saw eye to eye.

I can say he was probably one of the most respectful guys I know.

And that was that was down the Sunday after Thanksgiving, he got a positive covid test.

He continued just to get sicker and sicker and.

A week later, he couldn't even stand up by himself.

I called the ambulance and we had to help him onto the from the chair to the cart and.

He couldn't hardly breathe.

I mean, he was just breathing so quickly, and that was the last time I spoke to him.

I'm twenty eight.

I shouldn't be burying my dad as a twenty eight year old.

Steve Sidebottom of Westerville worked in intelligence for the Navy for 23 years, and later he was an I.T.

risk specialist.

His work took him to Saudi Arabia, where he was in the oil industry.

His wife of 32 years, Christina, says he was a smart and kind man who had a great sense of humor.

He told great stories.

It was my people love telling stories.

And whenever I couldn't sleep at night, he would just make up stories to tell me till I went to sleep.

There's silly stories to make up, but he would always make everybody laugh.

And he was very kind, gentle person.

He was a talented musician.

And he played the guitar and he sang in a church and he also played the dulcimer he loved to read.

We traveled all over the world.

He worked out regularly.

He rode a bicycle.

And we had also written a Harley for many, many years.

So it really was just the two of us.

We went everywhere together.

We did everything together.

So it's really.

I just feel my heart ripped on November 1st, at age 76, Steve died with Christina biocide.

Gena Rowlands of Columbus wasn't with Marianne Rollins when she passed away on August 26, but Gina was at the hospital when her mom was diagnosed.

They walked in and they looked at me and said, we have a positive result.

And I just look, I don't I can't imagine sitting there thinking like, oh my God, how am I going to tell my sister this?

What's going to happen?

And they're rushing me out the door and they're pushing me out the door, one nurse is saying, aren't you going to tell her goodbye?

I give her a kiss or something and one's rushing me and one's telling me this.

So I went back and I kissed her and I never saw my mom alive again.

Later that day, Gina and her sister took covid tests, but she looked at me and she says, We got it.

I know we do.

We came back positive immediately.

And our health went down the tubes from there, so she went out on Monday morning, she went in, she went on the ventilator.

That weekend.

And it just seemed like things started going down, and at that time, my sister and I, we were in isolation.

The hospital chaplains called us about about six, six thirty, and we got to say our goodbyes over the phone.

And they said a prayer with her and the next call we got was at eight thirty, telling us she was God's Jenas grief through later that day as her son was diagnosed with covid and went into the hospital.

Two days later, her sister called with more bad news.

Gina's only child wasn't doing well.

They may have to put him on a ventilator.

And at that point, I lost it, I could barely breathe, I couldn't walk, and for a good 15 minutes with a little breath I had and a little bit that I could walk, I just walked a little circle and I just screamed, Father, no one, please.

I kept thinking, oh, my God, I lost my mom, I can't afford to lose my child.

You and I couldn't get to him, that was the hurt and it hurt that I couldn't get to my mother, but even more so that I couldn't get to my only child.

I couldn't see him.

I couldn't touch him.

I couldn't figure out what in the world is going to happen and my going to be doing a double funeral and a son recovered.

And three weeks later, the family was able to put Marianne to rest.

They were finally able to celebrate the registered nurse who worked for the city of Columbus for 50 years, the Delta Sigma Theta member, the woman who had received a special honor from her alma mater.

She was very proud of her accomplishment because she was I think in the beginning there were 20 blacks that started the nursing program.

And in the end there were only nine.

She was one of those nine.

She is listed at the Ohio State University as a nursing home, alleging legen.

I mean, there's just so much I can say, she opened her arms to anybody and everybody, she loved everybody and everyone loved her.

Diane Doddery was well known in Tiffin, where she and her husband raised their family.

She had.

My sister, 11 months before me, so she had two kids that were not that far apart and stayed home and took care of the family, volunteered at the local community theater.

She was very opinionated for the most part, exercised a lot of discretion.

But when she got in in the company of like minded people, she was not the least bit shy to share her thoughts and opinions and.

That was always kind of entertaining and December, both Diane and Bob, her husband of 63 years, came down with covid.

Bob shook it off, but Diane had several underlying medical conditions.

Covid, I think, just exacerbated that.

She was in the hospital for 12 days, received the death of your course of treatment and was discharged.

And we thought she was fine, she wasn't she celebrated Christmas with the family, but that evening she went back to the emergency room and that was the last time she left her home.

She went to the hospital, then a rehab center.

And when it was clear that her time was short, Gary moved her and his dad into their home in central Ohio.

We had her in a hospital bed out near our living room area and she would sleep a lot and.

Whenever she would wake up, she would ask what time it was or what day it was, and we tell her and she just get this look of amazement on her face and she'd say, well.

What is taking so long?

I mean, she was she was ready to go, and I think that made it easier for for us to be able to spend those last few days with her.

So we brought her down here and dad was here.

Dad was here, my wife and I.

Dad was here, my wife and I, in one of my daughters when she took her last breath.

Diane PorterWright died January 31st at the age of 87.

Jim Daniels was a jet mechanic in the U.S. Air Force, later he settled down, worked at Lennix, where he eventually became the supervisor of maintenance.

He enjoyed woodworking and volunteered with Habitat for Humanity.

He was a father, a grandfather.

The guy was just so with it.

I mean, he was.

We would have conversations about things and, you know, he he we talk about things that had happened in the past and we couldn't recall.

Middle of the night or early the next morning, I get a call, he'd say the word that we'd forgotten and hang up, that would be it.

He had a great sense of humor.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's I just I'm still just crushed.

He found out on a Tuesday.

He died on Friday.

And even when he made the decision.

To quit the extraordinary treatment that he was receiving.

He was with it, you know, and the nurse said to him, do you understand what an extraordinary gift you're giving to your family because.

We didn't have to make the decision then and he said, well, I love them and I know they do the same for, you know, for me.

So he was very matter of fact, but also.

He fought as long as he could.

He said this is not living.

It was like watching someone drown, Daniel says two of his sisters could not be with his father when he passed because they had covid and the one I was with who had not tested positive yet, did.

The next morning, after our father's passing as a pastor, Daniel says he's seen members of his congregation fighting for their lives.

One 37 year old man in his church has been in the hospital for five months now.

We had a couple in our congregation whose 19 year old granddaughter died from it at the very beginning.

We have a couple now whose nine month old grandchild has it.

The sad thing about it is that we seem to be coming into this stretch drive.

We seem to be coming near the end up and I lose my dad and we've been so careful with him through this whole thing.

Canal Winchester resident David Seiffert lost his battle with covid on December 17th, 20-20, his wife of 32 years, says he was an accomplished engineer who also served his community, Blum Township, as its fiscal officer for more than a decade.

He was just very gentle, very gentle.

Our friends would say Dave and I were a true story of opposites attract.

He put the general and gentleman, there was not a soul on this earth.

That didn't like Dave.

My husband was athletic, very fit, ran three miles every day, even through the first few days of covid, his exercise was very important to him.

He was slender.

He ate very nutritiously.

And on December 8th, I got a call asking me how quickly I could get to the hospital.

They were getting ready to put him on a ventilator.

So what does the hospital.

And they had all these people trying to work on him and keep him from being off of it so that I had time to get their.

And I kept it together emotionally at that time because something inside me told me he's going to be OK. And I'm standing outside the glass window and they had the phone up to him and I went, fight, fight, fight.

It gave me a thumbs up.

And then I said, I love you, and he took his hand.

And that was the last communication we had.

Around eight hundred and fifty thousand Ohioans are confirmed to have been infected with coronavirus since March 9th, 20 20, over fifty one thousand Ohioans have been hospitalized, including Democratic former state representative John Patterson of Ashtabula County.

Among several state lawmakers who tested positive, Patterson was in the hospital with covid and double pneumonia in December that week when I was running a temperature.

I thought, OK, I can handle this, but the breathing changed things dramatically.

And I thought, oh, my gosh, this could be potentially a respirator issue when my wife dropped me off.

Keep in mind, it's covered time as well for visiting or people at the emergency room.

I found out later she just waited.

I walked in and she just pulled aside and she started crying right after she dropped me off, not knowing if she'd see me again.

And he says he's very concerned about dropping mask mandates and restrictions, especially for people like his eighty seven year old mother.

I worry a great deal because.

Even now, I I was vaccinated just last week, too, as was Nancy, and even given that you could be a carrier and not know it, and the worst thing that I would ever want to do is carry this to someone else.

My mother's eighty seven and wow, this whole thing was going on.

When we visited her, it would be at a distance for a while, we didn't see her and she just lives in town a couple of blocks away or we drop things off outside the door, I think of her.

And if I gave it to her, I'd feel absolutely terrible.

If I gave it to anybody else, I'd feel terrible.

Because you don't know if you're caring, and that's that's a danger, I look at this, I'm giving up a bit of my own personal liberty to protect others and I can sacrifice self for others any day of the week.

Paterson says he's still dealing with breathing problems, fatigue and what he calls brain fog.

Those are common long haul covid symptoms, which can also include hair loss, rashes and joint aches.

Among the facilities for people with lingering covid symptoms is the Rickover Clinic at the Cleveland Clinic.

It's treated around one hundred and twenty patients and almost two thirds of them were not hospitalized for covid and some are still apparently having trouble taking the pandemic seriously.

I've definitely had patients in my in my outpatient clinic and and in talking to them about the importance of wearing masks inside and outside of the hospital and and how to try and keep their their community and their loved ones safe, who really didn't even believe that this was a true virus.

And it's just it's heartbreaking because just a few floors above me is our intensive care, one of our intensive care units.

So I would literally be upstairs seeing patients struggling for life on event and then come downstairs and hear somebody telling me that they don't believe that that virus is real.

And I don't I don't know how to prove to people how very real and how very frightening this disease is in November back at that time.

Oh, my gosh.

It was absolutely frightening to start to see the numbers of patients filling up the hospital and the numbers dying and not knowing how far we were going to go.

We're on the other side right now and it feels like we've had a weight lifted off of our shoulders.

But trust me, we're not there yet.

I still have patients upstairs who really don't don't want to be in that intensive care unit.

So this is very, very real.

And we need to do everything that we can to try and protect our loved ones and our community from this horrible virus.

England is hopeful.

Vaccines, mask wearing and social distancing will help stop the virus.

Though she's concerned about the variants that are showing up, this virus has proven that it can change and that can try to evade treatments and vaccines that we have out there.

So we need to try and get rid of as much of the virus in our communities as possible.

So we're not done wearing masks, we're not done social distancing yet.

And we certainly don't have enough people vaccinated right now to feel comfortable that we have any control over this in our communities.

But hopefully, as we start to see more expanded availability of vaccines, we'll start to see that as we get into the summer time and as we start getting back, looking at the fall.

So I, I do think there is a light at the end of the tunnel how bright that light is.

I don't think we know quite yet.

But the vaccine is truly the only hope that we have at this point.

And she expects the health care system.

We're dealing with covid for the next five years.

And on a non covid note, authorities are investigating the death this week of sixty seven year old Neil Clark.

His body and a gun were found in a wooded area near Naples, Florida.

Clark was the chief financial officer for the Ohio Senate Republicans in the 80s before becoming one of the most powerful lobbyists in Ohio, starting the firm with former Ohio Democratic Party chair Paul Tips until an explosive breakup in 2005.

Clark was on this show several times as a budget expert and as a lobbyist for the former online school escort, one of several major clients he represented.

Clark was awaiting trial in the sixty one million dollar bribery scheme the federal prosecutors say got first energy, a nuclear bailout there, the election of Republican Larry Householder as House speaker.

And that's it for this week.

Please check out the Ohio Public Radio and Television State House News Bureaus website at statenews.org.

And you can follow us on the show on Facebook and Twitter.

And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutual, providing more than one point four million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at Medd Mutual dotcom slash Ohio by the law offices of PorterWright Morris and Arthur LLP.

Now with eight locations across the country, PorterWright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community, Morad PorterWright Dotcom and from the Ohio Education Association, representing 100 24000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at O H E A dot org.