Unpunished Family Thought 13-year-old Kensey Dishman Beats COVID – Then She Dies

Kensey Dishman, 13, returned to Wayne County Middle School in rural Kentucky on Tuesday morning after a duel with COVID and mandatory quarantine.

Her mother, Kim Gibson, took her there, when they had an appointment with a counselor. Kensey still feels short of breath from time to time, but that is thought to be common after COVID and her oxygen levels have been fine.

Kensey seemed fine as Kim dropped her off at the front, where she joined the crowd of classmates returning from a weekend getaway. Students are no longer required to wear masks, as the Wayne County School Board voted unanimously last Thursday to permanently lift a mandated mandate on case counts. The message is one that similar relaxations have spread across the country: the risk of a pandemic is receding.

Kim was parking her car and had just entered the school office when her cell phone rang. The school called her to inform her that Kensey had passed out in the bathroom.

“Well, I’m here, I’m here,” Kim replied.

Kim rushed to the restroom, where the school nurse met.

“Her mother got to her and she fell against the wall,” Kensey’s stepfather, Brett Gibson, later told The Daily Beast. “She responded then. Looks like she just fell and braced herself against the wall. “

Kensey then had a convulsion, but recovered. She said she had severe pain in her side.

Brett later said: “She was asking her mother for help.

When the EMT arrived, Kensey was already beginning to pass out.

Brett later said: “They couldn’t get her intubated. “Her airways were full of blood, which is one reason why they seemed to think she might have had a blood clot.”

Kim remained with Kensey in the ambulance and at the hospital.

Brett told The Daily Beast. “She’s been with her the whole time.”

Brett arrives as doctors and nurses fight to save Kensey’s life. Their best efforts were not enough.

“They said, ‘We couldn’t do anything else,’” Brett recalls. “They couldn’t get her heart rate up. They couldn’t take her pulse. She has no brain activity. ”

Brett is a reporter/photographer for the local newspaper his family owns. But The Clinton County News was a weekly, and he covered Kensey’s death with a Facebook post. Lexington Herald-Ledger quoted his account in a story saying the school declined to comment.

Wayne County Coroner Gordon Hicks told The Daily Beast that the state medical examiner will have to do further tests in Louisville before he can give an official cause of death. Brett said that he and Kim have been led by medical experts to believe that the deaths are related to COVID. And that begs the question of whether Kensey has been vaccinated.

Brett told The Daily Beast. “We wanted her vaccinated and we [vaccinated], but when separating households, both parties must be present. And we didn’t have that.”

Kim and Kensey’s father, Alan Dishman, divorced more than a decade ago. Alan told The Daily Beast that several members of his family had suffered “some health problems” from the vaccination and that he had decided not to get the shot.

Alan said: “Her mother and stepfather were vaccinated. “I chose not to.”

He said he let 13-year-old Kensey decide for himself.

Alan said: “She didn’t want to take it. “She was afraid of it. I won’t force her. I asked her if she wanted to and she said, ‘No,’ and that’s just her way. She was very selective about everything.”

He added, “Someone will say bad things no matter what you do. But, you know, I want to be clear that some people can make us the bad guy or the bad guy, but she believes it’s a personal choice. “

That could be fine if we weren’t in a pandemic that has already killed nearly 1 million other Americans, and if a vaccine wasn’t widely accepted by all trusted health professionals as safe and effective. . Add to that the fact that Kensey had been stung by an ashtray and was therefore particularly vulnerable.

Alan said he discovered Kensey had contracted COVID at school in early February.

“I believe she got it at school and she brought it home and of course, naturally I got sick, then my wife and then the other kids,” he said.

They were suffering from typical symptoms.

“Sore throat and all that,” he said. “It’s all over, but she still has breathing problems. She has asthma and it’s not helping.”

Kensey’s brother and mother both took her to the doctor.

“We have some drugs here, you know, and nothing seems to help,” he said.

However, they differ when it comes to vaccines, and Alan and Kim both recall feeling she would be ready to resume classes once the week-long quarantine was over.

Alan said: “She loves going to school.

First time coming on holiday weekend. They split it up and Kensey spent Sunday with Alan. He seemed like the most loving of fathers as he later told of an idyllic day with her at the ranch where he lived with her stepmother, Michaela Dishman, and her four daughters. surname.

“The outdoors is beautiful; 65, sunshine,” he said. “It’s just been a perfect day here.”

Kensey went out with his siblings and a collection of animals that went beyond the usual cows, chickens and rabbits.

Alan reports: “She has a hermit crab here. “She calls it ‘My Grandcrab.’ She put this hermit crab in front of the TV and she said, “I’ll put it in the front row.”

At the end of the day, everyone goes to a Japanese restaurant that she loves.

Alan said: “She loves Japanese food. “She has a big plate of rice.”

Then they went to a multi-channel cinema. Kensey and her eldest sister asked if just the two of them could see “Death on the Nile.”

Alan said: “They wanted to see a movie together. “It makes them feel like teenagers.”

Kensey then spent Monday with Kim and Brett. The couple contracted COVID in October 2020, before a vaccine was even an option. Kim made a quick recovery, but Brett had a harder time with a lung infection years earlier. He also suffered from heart complications and had to undergo major surgery.

They don’t need convincing to get the footage when it’s available.

“We have the vaccine as soon as we get permission and we have the boosters,” Brett said.

About 60 percent of Clinton County, where Brett lives, and of adjacent Wayne County, where Alan has a farm, remain unvaccinated.

Brett said: “Everybody I think is afraid of it. “And there are a lot of people in this field who think [if] the government says you need to do it, then we won’t do it. “

His family newspaper sought to encourage vaccination by publishing a photo each week of a business that got everyone’s attention.

“It’s hard to find businesses that are fully vaccinated,” says Brett. “A lot of times the shops I see are fully vaccinated like a barber shop where only one person works.”

Brett just wished that Kensey had been vaccinated as he took pictures of her family after a major hurricane on January 17.

Brett recalls: “She really wanted to take pictures in the snow.

He didn’t have a camera, but he did with his cell phone. She poses against a pristine white background, an outgoing and shy teenager, a social butterfly and a family member.

On Friday, her school said it still had no statement, other than a word to describe an overarching feeling.

“It’s sad,” a spokesman said.

The coroner said there was still no official cause of death, but the body was released Friday morning. Her photograph in the snow is still a measure of all that has been lost.