July 5–7: Collapse After Dose Two and Hospital Gatekeeping

Day 2 · 5:48:36 · James Freeland · Shawn Buckley

• 📞 Still in the 15-minute observation, Ma called James: racing heart, anxiety, sweating, nausea; the nurse called it a common side effect and sent her home as symptoms worsened.
• 🤒 At home she deteriorated—vomiting, diarrhea, fever, incontinence, near-zero energy—while COVID tests James supplied were negative.
• 🚫 Hospital staff repeatedly told them not to bring her in because of a COVID influx and to treat “flu-like” symptoms with rest and fluids as she grew weaker by July 7.

Onset within minutes of dose two and days of refused escalation.

← Pressure to Vaccinate the Immunocompromised Son and Mother | Ambulance on Scene and Death from a “Hard Hit to the Heart” →

Transcript

James Freeland · 5:48:36

She said, James, I'm not feeling good. I don't feel good at all. And I said, what do you mean, Mom? Like, what are you doing? She says, I just got my shot. And I said, well, what do you mean? Where are you? She says, I'm at the Carmichael Arena. And I'm like, well, what are you doing? And she says, well, I'm in the 15-minute waiting for the observation. I said, well, do you tell the nurse? Are you telling the nurse? She says, yeah. She says, it's normal. I said, what are you feeling like, Ma? She said, my heart's racing. I I have so much anxiety, I'm sweating like crazy, I'm nauseous, I don't feel good, James, I don't feel good. I'm like, well, what are they telling you? And she said just to wait it out, I got 15 minutes. And I said, well, Ma, tell her like you're really bad, you don't feel like this, you never feel like this. She said that she did, she's telling the, the lady, that the nurse, that she's feeling like this. The nurse is saying it's fine, it's just a common side effect, you'll feel better, it's just going to go away. After the 15 minutes, it got worse.

James Freeland · 5:49:38

They told her that she could leave. She left. She got home.

Shawn Buckley · 5:49:45

No, she called you on the way home though, didn't she?

James Freeland · 5:49:46

Yes.

James Freeland · 5:49:47

Well, she called me on the way home. She said it's getting worse. And then she got home, I called her again. She said, 'Jabe, I'm not feeling good at all. I'm going to go lay down. I'm going to go rest. I'm going to I see if I could rest this off, and I talked to Jim, her partner. He says, yeah, James, she doesn't look good, you know, she's not feeling good, she's gonna go lay down, I'll call you around supper, you know. So after work I called her again.

Shawn Buckley · 5:50:14

She was asleep—.

James Freeland · 5:50:15

Well, not sleeping, but in bed, not feeling good. So I said, Jim, what's going on? I don't know, James, she's just not feeling good, can't get out of the washroom, constantly puking, constantly getting sick, you know, diarrhea. I said, Jim, you got to call the hospital. You got to go to the doctors. And at that time, because of the peak of the pandemic, they didn't want you to go to the hospital. They didn't want anybody to go to the hospital unless you were severely sick. And I was a health and safety officer at the time, so I had COVID tests for my guys at work. So I took COVID tests home and I put them on her doorstep. So I said, you have to test her to see if she has COVID. I don't know what it is, but see if she has COVID. So I put him on her doorstep and, and I drove home and, uh, he tested her. She didn't have COVID. It came up negative for COVID. And when I went home that night, that's the 5th of that night, the next day I called again.

James Freeland · 5:51:18

She is worse. She is barely has any energy. She's nauseous, fever, can't get out of bed, like diarrhea, having accidents in her, in her pants. Calls the hospital, they tell them not to bring her in. They say, don't bring her in, we have an influx of COVID cases, you know, it's not— you can't bring her in.

Speaker L · 5:51:44

What, what do we do?

James Freeland · 5:51:46

Keep her comfortable, you know, hydrate her and all that kind of stuff. Keep her fever— or do COVID tests. We've done a COVID test. She doesn't have COVID. Okay, well then just, you know, treat it as like the flu type symptoms and get rest, fluids. We did that throughout the day. Nothing, nothing. It got worse. It got worse and it got worse and it got worse. Um, I called throughout the day, talked to my mom. She was not getting any better. Um, on the 7th morning, I had called.

Speaker L · 5:52:25

I went to work.

James Freeland · 5:52:27

I called my mom. I said, hey Mom, do you think you guys are going to come out to dinner tonight? Just calling to check. I'd never heard her sound so weak before in my life. And she said, no, James, I don't think we can. I don't think we'll make it. Okay, ma, that's no problem. I called about 2 o'clock to Jim to see how he was, like, how the things were going. She's not too good, James. I don't think she's doing well, like, you know, this and that. I don't want to worry you or anything, but it's not getting any better. It looks like it's getting worse.

Shawn Buckley · 5:53:02

She's like, you know, I said, okay, Jim, we have to figure something out.

James Freeland · 5:53:05

We got to do something. I don't know how it's going to go. What are we going to do? I get home from work that night.

Shawn Buckley · 5:53:13

I don't even know.

James Freeland · 5:53:15

It was probably about an hour or two later. I get the phone call.