17-year-old girl who ‘felt indestructible’ dies from COVID in California, family says

Before 17-year-old Kennedy Stonum died of COVID-19 complications in California, family members say they begged her to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

“Myself and my wife and (her) grandmother pleaded, pleaded with her,” father Lee Stonum, of Orange County, told CBSLA. “I think like most teenagers, she felt indestructible. I know I did when I was that age. She didn’t know enough about the vaccine.”

So she refused to get the shot, her family says.

“I pleaded with her, actually. Probably not the right tone to take, but what do you do?” grandmother Marilyn Shea-Stonum, of Ohio, told ideastream public media. “And she would say politely, I’ll think about it. But her circle of friends, by and large, were not vaccinated.”

By late January, Kennedy felt sick enough to go to the emergency room, ideastream reported, and she was hospitalized with COVID-19. While hospitalized, family says she developed hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), a rare disease that causes the immune system to stop working properly and organs to swell. It can be brought on by other infections, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Her prognosis worsened, and on Feb. 11, doctors found a “major brain bleed,” Lee Stonum told the news site. Family chose to take her off life support that same day, and she died shortly after.

Kennedy was a junior at San Juan Hills High School and an employee of Selma’s Pizza & Tap Room in Ladera Ranch, according to the restaurant.

“We are all saddened by this sudden loss and send our condolences to Kennedy’s family and friends,” the restaurant shared on Facebook. “Our thoughts are with Kennedy’s family, friends, and all affected by this tragic loss.”

Now, the Stonum family is urging others to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

“I want to tell them to trust the science,” Lee Stonum told CBSLA. “I want to (tell) them that YouTube and TikTok aren’t research. I want to tell them that even if it’s a one in a million chance, those statistics don’t matter when it’s your child. What happened to Kennedy was exceedingly unlikely and very, very rare and none of that matters to me now.”

Marilyn Shea-Stonum told ideastream public media, “I just want to say – hey, kids, don’t do this to your grandparents.”

COVID-19 Vaccines for Children

In December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said unvaccinated children ages 12 through 17 are eight times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than those who are vaccinated.

“There are approximately 28 million children between the ages of 5 and 11 years old in the United States, and there have been nearly 2 million cases of COVID-19 within this age group during the pandemic,” officials say. “COVID-19 can make children very sick and cause children to be hospitalized. In some situations, the complications from infection can lead to death.”

Public health experts with the CDC recommend COVID-19 vaccines for everyone 5 years and older.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is available for anyone at least 5 years old, and the fully-approved Moderna vaccine is available for anyone 18 and older. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has emergency use approval for adults.

This story was originally published February 21, 2022 at 2:49 PM with the headline "17-year-old girl who ‘felt indestructible’ dies from COVID in California, family says."