Respiratory therapist Alva Daniels fought in covid hot spots throughout the pandemic, but it was only in recent months that the strain began to show.
He started calling his wife from the hospital bathroom, crying, when he lost a patient. “We can’t save them. All we do is bag ’em and tag ’em,” he told a friend. Then, as coronavirus cases fueled by the delta variant rose over the summer, he told his wife: “Things are getting bad again and we don’t have enough people to fight it. If something happens to me — if I die — I want to be buried next to my mom.”
Alicia McAllister-Daniels, a nurse, thought her husband was talking about a breakthrough case of covid-19. Instead, Daniels, 38, died by suicide just five days later, his body found in a wooded area near the apartment in Fredericksburg where he was living while on a travel assignment.