PEOPLE – The family of a 9-year-old girl is “shattered” after she suddenly died in her sleep, just three days after testing positive for COVID-19.
Makenzie Gongora, a 4th-grader from San Antonio, Texas, started feeling sick in her after-school care program on Friday, Jan. 29.
“Kenzie was complaining about a really bad headache and then they took her temperature and she had a fever,” her aunt, Victoria Southworth, told KSAT.
Makenzie’s mom, Kristle, took her to a medical center later that day to get tested for COVID-19, strep and the flu.
While the strep and flu tests came back negative, the COVID-19 test was positive.
Makenzie, who had no preexisting conditions other than being a little small for her age, the family told Today, was experiencing just mild symptoms and no respiratory problems.
Another aunt, Erica Gongora, told the outlet:
“The doctors told my sister-in-law [to] take her home and to make her comfortable, to monitor her fever, and if it got over a certain point, or if there were any other major issues that occurred, to go ahead and bring her back to the hospital.”
Throughout the weekend, Makenzie’s family monitored her closely.
She said at times that she wasn’t feeling well and started vomiting at one point, but otherwise “seemed to be recuperating,” Southworth told KSAT.
On Monday night, Makenzie told her mom that she was very tired and that her stomach hurt, and went to bed early. Shortly after midnight, Makenzie died …
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