As pediatric cases of COVID-19 started spiking across Georgia last month, 13-year-old Porter Helms was among those who tested positive. The eighth grader had been quarantining at home in Floyd County for about a week when his father checked on him and gave him medications at 3 a.m. Tuesday.
When his dad came back two hours later, Porter wasn’t breathing. Emergency workers tried CPR and transported him to the hospital, but he could not be revived, according to Floyd County Coroner Gene Proctor.
Cause of death, the coroner determined, was respiratory failure due to COVID-19. “That’s the first juvenile [in Floyd County] that we can actually say that died of the COVID-19 virus,” Proctor said, adding that he did not know the child’s vaccination status.
A spokesperson for Porter’s school, where masks were recently required, said the school community was heartbroken that the pandemic had claimed a child’s life.
During previous surges of COVID-19 in Georgia, children and teens were largely spared from serious illness, and child deaths were extremely rare. Of the more than 19,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the state, there have been 17 reported deaths of children.