‘They Lied to Us’: Wife of 53-year-old Who Died Hours After Receiving Remdesivir Speaks Out
Shannon is trying to raise public awareness of the COVID-19 hospital protocols that she believes led to her husband’s death.
In August 2021, 53-year-old Michael E. Pilgrim and his wife Shannon had just celebrated their 29th wedding anniversary and were looking forward to their daughter’s marriage in October.
A former military service member and father of two, Michael was a “good husband and great dad” and enjoyed golf in his spare time.
However, Michael’s fortunes dramatically changed that month when he experienced difficulty breathing and a low oxygen level. On Aug. 17, 2021, he was admitted to Dallas Regional Medical Center, near his hometown of Forney, Texas, with a COVID-19 diagnosis.
Two days later, on Aug. 19, he was dead.
In an interview with The Defender, Shannon Pilgrim said that from the time Michael was admitted to the hospital, she and other members of her family were barred from visiting him and kept in the dark about the treatment he was receiving.
According to Shannon, Michael’s medical records showed that doctors barely offered Michael any treatment and emphasized his unvaccinated status. Treatments Michael received included the controversial drug remdesivir — administered hours before his death.
Today, Shannon is trying to raise public awareness of the COVID-19 hospital protocols that she believes led to her husband’s death. She shared extensive medical documentation with The Defender corroborating her story.
‘Contradictory’ medical records contained ‘many gaps’
Shannon recounted that she and Michael became sick at the same time, but she recovered. Meanwhile, Michael remained bedridden. Shannon said Michael was previously healthy and was not taking any medications, but his breathing difficulties “scared” her and led her to call 911 — a decision she now regrets.
“The worst thing that’s ever happened to me is calling 911,” Shannon said. “I thought that I was doing the best thing for Michael. I came to find out that was the worst thing.”
Michael was taken to Dallas Regional Medical Center, a hospital that “has a horrible reputation” according to Shannon. She accused the hospital of refusing her request for Michael to be transferred and did not let her see him after he was admitted.
Shannon said communication with the hospital was limited. “I would call and the nurses would tell me they were on shift change or were busy and couldn’t talk to me.”
Doctors’ interactions with Michael were also limited, Shannon said. “They were just leaving him in a room and they had an iPad popped in to ask him about medical stuff.”
According to Shannon, most of what she’s learned about Michael’s treatment came from the medical records she obtained after his death — even though the records “are completely just contradictory” and contain “many gaps.”
Shannon referred to an instance when a Dallas Regional doctor told her that Michael was doing well — while the records indicate that the doctor called her to say Michael was in critical condition.
Shannon said the records revealed that the hospital “did nothing” for Michael. She said:
“On the first day, they basically didn’t do anything except give him oxygen. The next day, he had a chest X-ray and then doctors gave him vitamins … there’s contradictory stuff in here about whether he even had an IV. I can’t even get — from looking at his medical records — if they gave him fluid.
“They started giving him Lovenox shots for blood clots. Why? He didn’t have blood clots … Then they started giving him insulin. Why were they giving him insulin? He wasn’t a diabetic.
“But according to the medical records, they really didn’t do anything, and that’s what just completely floored me — except they gave him remdesivir.”
Remdesivir, which has been linked to deaths and injuries in COVID-19 patients, was commonly administered to patients under the COVID-19 hospital protocols.
According to Shannon, the records indicate that Michael was administered remdesivir on the day of his death. But as she recalls, when she spoke to her husband on the phone that day at noon he showed no signs of being in danger.
“He called me, and I actually got to talk to him. I didn’t talk to him very long, but he wasn’t on a ventilator. He was better,” Shannon said. “I called my kids and I was like, ‘He sounded so good.’ I said, ‘He’s going to be coming home.’ I was so excited.”
Yet, that afternoon, Michael was given remdesivir. According to Shannon, the hospital called her a few hours later to say that Michael was found unresponsive.
“I got hysterical,” Shannon said. “I was asking again and again, ‘Is he OK? Where is he? How do I get in touch?’ … She wouldn’t give me her name. She just said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ She said he coded and they took him to ICU and ‘someone will call you tomorrow’ … And she hung up the phone on me.”
Shannon’s son called Dallas Regional and was told Michael had died. But the family’s difficulties did not end there, as the hospital did not allow them to see Michael’s body.
“We didn’t get to see him until he was embalmed, because they told us that he had COVID,” Shannon said.
Shannon said she believes her husband’s unvaccinated status played a role in the treatment he received. She said Michael had been “cautious” about the COVID-19 vaccine and reluctant to receive it — and that the hospital was aware of this.
“You see all through his medical records, ‘unvaccinated,’ ‘unvaccinated,’ ‘unvaccinated,’” Shannon said. “It’s even written in there, ‘doesn’t trust the vaccine.’”
‘They completely lied’
Shannon said the hospital stonewalled her and her family after Michael’s death.
“They wouldn’t talk to me, they wouldn’t take my calls,” Shannon said. “I kept calling up there and begging to have somebody tell me what happened and nobody would tell me.” The hospital then started pursuing her for unpaid medical bills, she said.
When she did speak to hospital personnel, they misled her. In one instance, she said a doctor told her that while she had the right to have an autopsy performed on Michael’s body, local authorities were “six to eight months behind” and that she’d have to wait that long for the body to be released.
“They completely lied, because later I found out that by law they have to do an autopsy within two weeks, and then it can be six to eight months before you actually get the report. But they have to do it and they have to release the body. But they lied to us and we trusted them,” Shannon said.
Instead, Shannon said the government-funded COVID-19 Bereavement Assistance Fund offered a $10,000 payout for Michael’s death. “They were giving up to $10,000 if the death certificate had COVID on it. And I said, ‘no way in hell will I take that payout.”
Instead, Shannon became an advocate for families that endured similar experiences, by joining the FormerFedsGroup Freedom Foundation. Through her involvement with this advocacy group, Shannon has met with legislators, attorneys and family members of other COVID-19 hospital protocol victims.
“It’s hard, but I don’t want other loved ones to go through what we went through,” Shannon said. “I realized that I want to keep fighting. And so, as hard as it is to keep reliving this timeframe, I will keep doing it … I don’t want people to think he died from COVID, because he didn’t. He died at the hospital because of them. They killed him.”
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I can't imagine how many stories there are like this, and each one should come with prosecutions.
My son had his own experience, though thankfully he's fine. He had just come out of inpatient treatment for cancer, when he received a phone call from the hospital. He was asked if he had any symptoms and he did; just minor sniffles. They said he should go to the absolute BASTARDS at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, where they diagnosed him with COVID and admitted him. The next morning he called. I asked if they gave him Remdesivir and he said, "yes." I told him to refuse any more doses, tell them that he was discharging himself, and I was coming to pick him up.
The story is not without its humor though. At one point at the hospital, I saw a doctor pull her mask down, sneeze into her hand, and put her mask back up. Freaking moron.
At US FAERS, to 31 December 2024 for Remdesivir, there were 2,624 Deaths, 8,376 Serious Adverse Reaction reports from a total of 10,298 case reports.
https://geoffpain.substack.com/p/remdesivir-deaths-was-endotoxin-a