‘All I hear is the ventilator’: 24-year-old Alberta woman in ICU after putting off COVID-19 vaccine

Jilleen Oar, 24, from Slave Lake, Alta., has been in an Edmonton ICU since Sept. 10 after contracting COVID-19.

Shakira Oar has spent much of the last month at her big sister’s Jilleen’s bedside. The 24-year-old from Slave Lake, Alta., has been in an Edmonton intensive care unit since Sept. 10 after contracting COVID-19.

“It’s hard to see my sister like this because I’m so used to hearing her talking with me and laughing with me,” the 19-year-old told Global News from outside the University of Alberta Hospital. “Now I just hear the ventilator going and going and going. That’s all I hear.”

Oar says she and her sister had both been hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine at first but in August, she says, they both decided it was the right thing to do.

“I finally convinced myself, because I was totally against it at first — I was listening to so many rumours about it,” she says. “My sister was against it, too; she was scared of it.

A week after testing positive, Oar says her sister became very ill. She was admitted first to the Northern Lights Regional Health Centre in Fort McMurray, Alta., before being transferred to Edmonton on Sept. 10.

“Her lungs are really infected with COVID pneumonia and she has or had a blood clot in her lung so the damage is severe,” said Oar.

As of Monday, Alberta Health Services says there were 298 patients in intensive care across the province. The number represents a three per cent decline from last week but well above the province’s normal patient volume.

There are currently 374 ICU beds open in Alberta; 201 of those spaces have been created in recent weeks to accommodate the surging numbers of COVID-19 patients.