A 2-month-old boy — who Michigan’s top health official announced had died this week from COVID-19 — had serious health conditions beyond the virus.
The child, Hudson Cowboy King, was born in July with gastroschisis, a birth defect in which a baby’s intestines develop outside the body. That condition was listed as the cause of his death Sunday, according to the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office.
While gastroschisis is listed as the cause of death, the report said in the first line: "This 2-month-old infant died from COVID-19. He had GI symptoms of the disease, which exacerbated tenuous congenital defects."
He died at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, but had been home recovering with his parents at their home in Gladstone in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, according to both his death report and a GoFundMe.com page set up to raise funds for a gravestone and funeral expenses for the boy.
The report says Hudson died “after developing acute respiratory symptoms. It is believed that he aspirated. ... The nurse stated that COVID-19 caused his recent issues.”
More: 2-month-old baby becomes Michigan's youngest COVID-19 victim
The medical examiner’s report, obtained by Bridge Michigan, also listed necrotizing enterocolitis, in which bacteria causes inflammation and infection in the bowels, as another contributing factor in Hudson's death.
Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, the state’s chief medical executive, announced at a news conference Wednesday that a 2-month-old had died of COVID-19 in Michigan. Without mentioning the boy or his family by name, she said that his case highlighted how the coronavirus can be dangerous to people of all ages, even children.
"Children are not spared from this disease, either," she said. "I was so saddened to hear this week of a 2-month old baby in Michigan who died because of COVID-19, and my condolences go out to (his) parents and family."
Studies, she said, show that children are less likely to get “severely ill” from the virus, but “they still can.”
The baby's mother, Brooke Granquist, posted to Facebook after Khaldun's announcement, expressing outrage and denying that COVID-19 played a role in her son's death.
"I am so angry," she wrote in a post that was shared thousands of times before it was deleted. "I am angry at the government for skewing numbers and making my baby a statistic to try to benefit their agenda while my family is suffering."
The Detroit Free Press spoke to Granquist on Thursday evening, but she declined to be interviewed.
The complicated medical findings following the boy’s death underscore the challenges in counting COVID-19 deaths.
Bob Wheaton, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, said the state follows national standards in classifying coronavirus deaths.
The death must be natural, the virus must be confirmed through a COVID-19 test, and the death must be within 30 days of the onset of COVID-19 or — if longer than 30 days — the “certifying physician identifies COVID-19 as a contributing factor to death,” Wheaton wrote in an email.
So far in the pandemic, Wheaton said “fewer than five children” in Michigan have died of COVID-19 and its complications.
Among them was 5-year-old Skylar Hebert of Detroit, who died in April at Royal Oak Beaumont after developing a rare form of meningitis and brain swelling following a COVID-19 infection.
More: First responders from around the region honor 5-year-old COVID-19 victim Skylar Herbert
The medical examiner's report for Hudson said that doctors had already repaired the baby’s abdominal complications after his birth. After surgery, he was offered “exceptional, incredible care” at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, according to his obituary.
The photo on the family’s GoFundMe page shows a smiling little boy with dark spiked hair, swaddled in a blanket decorated with colorful, spotted dinosaurs.
He “was full of smiles and snuggles for his 74 days of life, bringing joy and happiness to his family and every doctor, nurse, and person who met him,” according to his obituary.
The mother wrote on the GoFundMe site that on Sept. 7, as the infant’s family worked on some home improvements and were grilling outdoors, the baby began throwing up and developed diarrhea.
The couple wanted specialists, and decided to return to Mott, but “bad weather moving throughout the Midwest didn't allow for the helicopter to safely land,” Granquist wrote.
So on Sept. 8, the family made its way to Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
The next few days had ups and downs. Doctors believed the child would recover, telling his parents at one point they would probably return home the next day.
But “while I was cuddling and comforting our little man, I noticed his skin color taking a turn for the worse and his lips and mouth were turning blue even though he was still breathing,” the mother wrote.
With a lab tech ready to draw blood, his mother wanted to comfort him against the pain of the needle, she wrote.
“As soon as I met his eyes, (her son) threw up and stopped breathing,” she wrote.
Doctors tried to revive him and the child teetered between life and death for hours, Granquist wrote.
“When it was all said and done and Jesus took (the child) to his Heavenly home, we held our lifeless little boy and sobbed over him and kissed him and said our goodbyes,” she said.
Hudson, according to the medical examiner’s report, died after “developing acute respiratory symptoms. … The nurse stated that COVID-19 caused his recent issues,” according to the medical examiner’s documents.
The baby's father, Kent King, wrote in a post on his Facebook page that he had so many lessons he wanted to teach his little boy.
"I was looking forward to teaching you how you need to stand up for others and protect them. I was looking forward to seeing your loving heart help others. With your strength, I was looking forward to explaining how in life sometimes you must be strong enough to carry the extra weight of other's burdens on your shoulders so that they don't crumble. That true leadership is in bringing up everyone else around you. I was going to raise you to be the man that brings feelings of happiness and safety to everyone around when you entered a room. ... Unfortunately, I no longer have that opportunity with you. ...
"I'm finding a peace in the understanding that every lesson I thought I was going to teach you with my life, you have taught me with yours. So rest easy in heaven little Hudson Bear. Your mom and dad will be missing you everyday until we see you again. Love you."
A funeral service is planned for Tuesday.
Bridge Magazine, Detroit Free Press and Michigan Radio are teaming up to report on the coronavirus pandemic. You can contact Detroit Free Press reporter Kristen Jordan Shamus at kshamus@freepress.com, Bridge reporter Robin Erb at rerb@bridgemi.com or Michigan Radio reporter Kate Wells katwells@umich.edu.
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