Unvaccinated pregnant mom, 24, dies of brain hemorrhage after catching COVID

The father of a 24-year-old pregnant woman who died as a result of COVID has said that doctors told him she could have survived if she had been vaccinated.

Mother-of-two, Sadie Exley died on December 3 after suffering a brain hemorrhage. Exley, from Yorkshire in the U.K, was 29 weeks pregnant. She caught COVID in November, Yorkshire Live reported. She was unvaccinated.

Speaking to Yorkshire Live her father, 57-year-old David Exley, said his daughter had fully intended to get the COVID vaccine as soon as she was eligible, but that someone had persuaded her not to.

Exley described the response he received when he asked what his daughter’s prospects would have been if she had received the vaccine. According to The Times, he said: “When everything happened, we spoke to the consultant. I asked him honestly if she had the jab when she could have had it, and he said he couldn’t say 100 percent but he thought she’d still be here.

“We never expected anything like this in a million years. She was fit and healthy.”

Exley said: “They tried to save her but it was apparent that we had lost Sadie. They saved baby Elliot but they couldn’t save our Sadie.” Elliot survived after being delivered by cesarean section. He weighed 2.1lbs.

Sadie Exley, also mother to a 2-year-old daughter Harper, worked at a local B&M store in Batley. Upon hearing the news of her death the store was closed and colleague Robert Bale created a GoFundMe page to ensure her two children have money set aside for when they are older.

The fundraiser has exceeded its target of £3,000 (over $4,000) with donations currently totaling almost £3,700.

Exley added that his daughter had been experiencing a pregnancy without complications until October when the young mother began experiencing chest pains and a migraine. She was diagnosed with a blood clot and Exley said this is also when “alarm bells started ringing” for him.

He told Yorkshire Live that he was surprised when his daughter, living with her mother Jill Allen at the time, was sent home with blood thinners to treat herself. Exley said he was assisting Allen in caring for their daughter who was in “constant pain.”

The COVID infection followed a month later on November 24. Her father continued: “She caught COVID while healthy, and COVID does a lot of things. It works on your weaknesses within your body.

“What COVID did is it stimulated the red blood cells to produce little clots. Over time they got bigger and bigger and bigger. She was getting symptoms for a month and then a blood clot in her brain caused a bleed by then it was too late.”

On December 2 in the early morning, Sadie Exley’s condition deteriorated. She woke up feeling numb on one side of her body. After a fall she was left paralyzed on the floor until 8 a.m. when an ambulance arrived to rush her to St. James Hospital in Leeds.

From there she was transferred to Leeds General Infirmary where she was rushed to the intensive care unit.

Exley said that he was unable to see his daughter as she had COVID. He continued: “I wasn’t allowed in A&E [Accident and Emergency, the U.K. equivalent of the ER] even if we had a bubble. They allowed Sadie’s mum in but they tried to kick her out. The staff said because she was COVID positive, Jill had to leave and that was the last time she saw her alive.”