A 25-year-old New Jersey man is fighting for his life after a lab lost a test that showed he was positive for the coronavirus — delaying his treatment, reports say.
Jack Allard, a two-time All American lacrosse player, was placed in a medically induced coma at an Edison hospital after being tested for COVID-19, news station WABC reported.
His mother, Genny Allard, told Pix11 News that her son first got sick on March 13 when he started experiencing a high fever, back pain and started throwing up.
“We thought he had a kidney infection,” she told the station.
His health deteriorated and he was placed on a ventilator in the intensive care unit, where he was tested for the coronavirus, WABC reported.
But the lab lost the test, which delayed his access to special experimental treatment by at least five days, the report said.
“My son is healthy, no pre-existing conditions and he’s 25. This virus is really dangerous and now he is very, very sick,” Genny told WABC.
Jack was eventually airlifted to the University of Pennsylvania on Tuesday for a clinical trial for the Ebola drug Remdesivir.
“Remdesivir is one of the anti-virals that has been shown to limit the viral activity,” Dr. Laila Woc-Colburn, an infectious disease professor at Baylor College, told PIX11 News.
Genny said her otherwise healthy son’s ordeal has revealed that “we’re in uncharted waters in the world” with the pandemic.
“He never vaped, he never smoked,” the mother told WABC. “He took his health very seriously — I mean he’s an athlete.”