NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. — A Pasco County middle school teacher died of cardiac arrest after testing positive for COVID-19.
Renee Dermott was a teacher at Seven Springs Middle School and had been in the hospital recovering. Her family said after a scary couple of days, she seemed to be getting better, but her daughter says she died of cardiac arrest on Sunday.
Renee's family dropped her off at the hospital on Monday after a few days of experiencing COVID-19 symptoms. Her family was not allowed inside hospital doors due to the pandemic. Once Renee got to the hospital her doctors first diagnosed her with pneumonia.
“They had found pneumonia, so they were treating for that, just as normal,” said Nikki Dermott, Renee's daughter.
Per usual, Renee was tested for COVID-19 when she checked into the hospital.
“Her breathing got a little bit worse, she had a slight cough,” said Nikki.
Then on Wednesday, the COVID-19 test came back positive.
“I think that’s what really scared her, the bottom line, and it kind of scared us. We weren’t hearing from her, we’d text her, we’d call her, even if we could just hear from her, and she wasn’t answering, and then she made this post,” said Nikki.
Renee posted this on Facebook:
“She was saying, you know, she might die, and we were like, 'wait what?' so we went kind of crazy with that and were calling her off the hook,” said Nikki.
That's when the community rallied for Renee, sending messages and texts, and also starting a GoFundMe page to help her out.
Renee's daughter says she had been telling all the doctors she wanted to get back to work and back to being with her kids.
You can find the GoFundMe page one of Renee's friends started by clicking here.
