The mother of a 34-year-old man who died suddenly two weeks after his first dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine said she believes her son would be alive today if he had had the information he needed to make an informed decision about the vaccine.
Victor Castillo Simoes died May 5, 2021, from an acute aortic dissection — an uncommon medical emergency in which the inner layer of the large blood vessel branching off the heart’s aorta tears. The condition mostly affects men in their 60s and 70s.
In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Simoes’ mother, Henrietta Simoes, said her son’s only symptom was the chest pain he experienced shortly before he died.
Simoes, a senior manager at Amazon, received his first Pfizer shot on April 20, 2021, at a Seattle, Washington Safeway.
Fifteen days later, he woke up feeling unwell and had chest pains, Henrietta said. He called an ambulance and told his girlfriend he “wasn’t right,” and needed to get checked out.
