He tested positive for the coronavirus on Sept. 7 and quarantined for 10 days before returning to Boone, according to his uncle David Dorrill, who said he lives seven houses away from the family in Wallburg, North Carolina, near Winston-Salem. He said that after his nephew returned to college, he almost immediately began experiencing serious neurological problems.
“When he tried to get out of bed,” David Dorrill said, “his legs were not working, and my brother had to carry him to the car and take him to the emergency room. The doctor said it was a one-in-a-million case — that they’d never seen something progress the way it did. It was a COVID complication that rather than attacking his respiratory system attacked his brain.”
Although the coronavirus targets the lungs foremost, it also attacks the kidneys, liver and blood vessels, and a significant number of patients report neurological symptoms, including headaches, confusion and delirium.