Utah Mom Dies Days After Receiving Second Dose of Vaccine

Kassidi Kurill, an otherwise healthy 39-year-old single mom, died suddenly four days after she took the second dose of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine.  

The mother of one, was able to get the vaccine because of her work as a surgical tech for several Ogden area plastic surgeons, and got her first shot with no hesitation.  “She was absolutely fine with getting it. In fact, she told all of us, ‘it’s fine, you guys should all get it,'” her older sister Kristen said.  

Aside from a sore arm, Kurill experienced no other side effects after the first dose, but her body’s reaction was lethally different when she took her second dose on February 1. 

She “got sick right away, soreness at the shot location, then started getting sick then, started complaining that she was drinking lots of fluids but couldn’t pee, and then felt a little better the next day,” according to her father Alfred Hawley, whom she and her nine-year-old daughter Emilia lived with.  

Kurill was bed bound her second and third day after getting her final dose of the vaccine, by Thursday morning she asked Hawley to drive her to the emergency room. She began vomiting immediately and a blood test confirmed her liver was failing. 

She airlifted to a trauma center where her condition continued to rapidly decline. Both of her parents offered to donate portions of their livers, but Kurill went into multi-organ failure and was dead within thirty hours of arrival at the emergency room. 

Hawley was in absolute shock, “She was healthy, happy and active, the greatest mom you ever saw in your life, and then she was so sick that, in less than 12 hours, intubated and on life support.”

The family elected to get an autopsy to determine Kurill’s cause of death, but Utah’s chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Erik Christensen, said proving vaccine injury is next to impossible. “Did the vaccine cause this? I think that would be very hard to demonstrate in autopsy,” he commented.  

Christensen, who can’t comment specifically on the case due to privacy laws, said many people are living with major health issues that have been undiagnosed. According to Kurill’s family, she had no known medical conditions.  

Hawley said his daughter was “healthy and good… then she took the shot.” He pointed to “Occam’s Razor, where the simplest answer is mostly likely correct.”  

Emilia, who’s father is a traveling civil servant and member of the National Guard, will continue to live with her grandparents.  

Marie Finn