Hoosier couple diagnosed with COVID-19 on honeymoon make full recovery

INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) – February 29, 2020 is a day Shelley Padgett and Jerry Ford will never forget.

“It was a beautiful weekend. It was absolutely the best ever,” said Padgett.

It was their wedding day. The very next morning they caught a flight to Hawaii to start their honeymoon.

“We were really healthy that Sunday, Monday and most of Tuesday,” said Padgett.

Padgett said Tuesday night on the way to dinner, Ford started feeling sick.

“He just kept saying he wasn’t feeling well and so I did the hand-to-forehead and I was like, ‘Whew, your hot!’” said Padgett

Urgent Care doctors gave him Tamiflu.

“Then I started to come down (with something), not with what he had. I had kind of like an ear infection which I never get, but it was on both sides and it felt like I had an ocean in my head,” said Padgett.

They would later learn a guest at their wedding had unknowingly been exposed to the virus while at a BioGen conference in Boston. Nearly a dozen people at the wedding got COVID-19.

Padgett says they quarantined themselves in their hotel room and then called ahead to the hospital informing them of the news that they, too, could have coronavirus.

The results came back positive.

“We were actually the first two on Kauai to contract the virus,” said Padgett.

They would spend the next 13 days in isolation.

“We were the only two there and there was security guard at the top of the hill and no TV, so we had no idea what was swirling around us at the time,” said Padgett.

Padgett says in times of sadness they lifted each other up. They also had old friends and colleagues reach out.

“Humanity came out and wanted to surround us,” said Padgett.

The couple made a full recovery. Padgett says her experience taught her a lot.

“I’ve learned that I’m strong. I’m stronger than I thought I was. There were moments in our journey when we were really sick, and when it was being announced that there were some cyber-bullying going on telling us about ‘why would they travel knowing they had COVID. ‘Why would they come if they were sick,’ which were not true,” said Padgett.

She says positivity helped them heal. She also started to blog about her experience and says it has been therapeutic.

Soon, her blog and photos will be among scores of others in a collection at the Indiana Historical Society helping to document COVID-19.

“I remember once going to the Newseum and it was documenting things like Hurricane Katrina and the fall of the Berlin Wall. I thought ‘Indiana wants to capture something similar and we want to be able to do that,’” said Padgett.

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Padgett wants to encourage others to take COVID-19 seriously and know that everyone’s symptoms vary. She says she hopes her story can help someone else.

“To me, it’s a hope story that I hope to share with others as I walk through,” said Padgett.

Click here for more information on how you can submit items to the Indiana Historical Society.