PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. – Tragedy is surrounding a Palm Beach County family after a mother, a father and a son all died after contracting COVID-19.
Eric Sherman has gone through the unthinkable after losing his closest family members.
On Jan. 1, he was living with his parents and brother.
And now, one month later, he’s the only one still alive.
When Sherman got sick right before the new year, he had no idea it was COVID-19, nor did he know it would change his life forever.
“I thought basically I had a bad flu or something like that,” he said. “I became so weak and a fever started and you’re so weak, but you can’t even go to the bathroom.”
Sherman lived with his mother and father, Leslie and Douglas, and his older brother, Marc, all of whom had pre-existing medical conditions.
When all four of them got sick, they all went to the hospital. Only Sherman’s mother and brother were admitted.
While he and his father recovered at home, Leslie and Marc’s conditions slowly declined.
“They spent the first three weeks in ICU, you can’t talk to them, you get the same phone calls of status and the only time you really get a change in the phone calls is when the chaplain calls or the doctor calls and has to tell you that it spreads,” Sherman said.
First, Sherman’s brother passed away on Tuesday, Jan. 26, and then his mother died only about 24 hours later.
He and his father began setting up funeral arrangements for Sun. Jan 31, but early that morning, only hours before the burial, Sherman found his father dead in his bathroom after a heart attack from what Sherman said was a broken heart.
“All I know so far is they were three of the most pure-hearted people you could have found on this planet,” he said. “It’s tragic and I could only hope there were more birth’s today with pure-hearted children to replace them.”
Sherman said his parents were both beloved teachers and his brother was a baseball and wrestling knowledge whiz who was going to turn 50 years old a week from Wednesday.
A GoFundMe page has been created to help pay for the family’s funeral expenses.