BOLINGBROOK, Ill. (WGN) -- An Illinois family is mourning the loss of a 15-year-old girl who died from COVID-19 just two days after testing positive.
Dykota Morgan was, by all accounts, a healthy Bolingbrook High School freshman who excelled in school and athletics. But a little more than a week after she turned 15, she started feeling sick.
"Sunday, we were out early and she called us and said that she woke up feeling dizzy and weak, and she was coughing on the phone," said mother Krystal Morgan.
Dykota had been complaining of headaches for the past two weeks but did not have any pre-existing conditions, her mother said.
Over the weekend, her parents noticed a change.
"She just wasn’t doing good, she was too tired, and the cough and the fever. So by about 5 o'clock, I said, 'I’m going to get you a COVID test because I’m kind of worried you might have COVID,'" Krystal Morgan said.
On Sunday, Dykota tested positive for COVID-19, and by Monday, she was in the hospital.
Her parents had to say goodbye to her at 3 a.m. Tuesday.
"She was perfectly healthy, she just, her heart just ... She was perfectly healthy and she got COVID and it took her," father Rashad Bingham said.
Dykota's parents want people to know the virus is not gone and that children are not immune. They're hopeful the vaccine can soon help prevent this from happening to other families.
"As soon as it’s available to the babies, I think they should do it, do it because you just never know. I didn’t expect this. She was healthy, I feel like, I don’t know, I just feel like I was robbed, I was robbed,” her father said.
A balloon release will be held in Morgan's honor at 5:30 p.m. Saturday in Bolingbrook.
