A 66-year-old Michigan nursing home patient suffering from the coronavirus turned to her Amazon Echo Show in her final days – pleading for help from Alexa to cope with her pain before dying, according to a report.
LouAnn Dagen was one of 31 residents and five staffers at the Metron of Cedar Springs who tested positive for the illness, according to WOOD-TV.
Dagen, who was quarantined along with the other residents in a separate section of the home, pleaded in desperation with the virtual assistant dozens of times before dying Saturday at a hospital in Grand Rapids, the station reported.
Her sister Penny Dagen discovered the 40 heartbreaking recordings in the device.
“Alexa, help me,” LouAnn was heard saying at one point, according to a recording her sister shared with the news outlet at her home in Sparta.
“I am in pain. I have to find a way to relieve it,” the ailing woman told Alexa.
“Can you help me cope with pain? Oh, Alexa, I’m going to hurt,” she said.
LouAnn also asked for help reaching law enforcement.
“How do I get to the police?” she said, according to the recording, which showed she was provided with directions to the nearest police station.
The grieving sister told WOOD-TV that Metron had already been giving LouAnn pain medication.
“I just kept telling her there wasn’t anything I could do,” Penny said as she tearfully apologized to her younger sister.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you more. I’d take your pain away,” she said.
LouAnn, who suffered from diabetes and hypertension, had been living at Metron ever since she survived a stroke almost 10 years ago, the station reported.
The Metron of Cedar Springs nursing homeGoogle Maps
Early last week, she had been short of breath but Metron officials said she did not have a fever, Penny said.
“It wasn’t until Thursday that they started the saline solution because she was getting dehydrated,” Penny said. “She just kept saying, ‘I’m thirsty.’ She didn’t drink anything, though.”
On Saturday, LouAnn’s oxygen level and blood pressure dropped, prompting the nursing home to send her to Mercy Health Saint Mary’s, where she went into “convulsions,” Penny said.
“The hospital called me right away and said that they put her on a respirator… They asked me about giving her CPR if her heart stopped and I said, ‘No, she didn’t want that,’” she said.
“And then her heart stopped and that was it. A half-hour after they called.”
Her death was caused by “coronavirus infection, diabetes and hypertension,” the medical examiner’s office told the outlet.
Metron did not respond to the station’s request for comment. A message left by The Post was not immediately returned.
“It’s good to know she’s not in pain anymore, but I still miss her,” Peggy told WOOD-TV. “She’s up in heaven now so she’s pain-free, and she’s walking… with my mom and my dad, so I have to be happy for her.”
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