Amy Desormeaux, a staff member at Apex Friendship High School, has died from COVID-19, her daughter said.
Desormeaux is one of several North Carolina school employees who have died from the virus, according to media reports.
Her family isn’t sure where she and her husband, Joe, contracted the disease.
“They’d been working hard to stay home and be protected when they went out and only going out when they had to,” said Olivia Desormeaux, Amy’s daughter.
Desormeaux had not been in the high school building since March, said Lisa Luten, communications director for the Wake County Public School System.
Desormeaux, 60, was admitted to the hospital on Jan. 8 after being diagnosed with the coronavirus the week before. Her family announced Desormeaux’s passing Friday night on the website CaringBridge.
“She loved working with students and felt like it was important for them to feel loved,” Olivia Desormeaux said in an interview with The News & Observer. “Her momma was a teacher and a lot of her family was in education.”
Amy Desormeaux was a media assistant at the high school and worked at school libraries for years, including at schools her daughter attended as a student.
“It was a place she always found a calling to serve students and made connections with everyone,” her daughter said. “She always wanted to make sure others were taken care of.”
Every day at the hospital was a fight to breathe, Olivia Desormeaux said on the CaringBridge website. Her mother was “so exhausted of fighting and being in pain.”
Her husband Joe was doing better and “just had a little cough,” Olivia said.
“The number of people who have come out of the woodwork to show love for my mother is making me so proud of her and happy that she was able to touch that many lives,” she said on CaringBridge. “I love her and miss her so much already. I feel broken. Dad misses her so much too and I can’t imagine how he feels.”
Matthew Wight, principal at Apex Friendship High School, commented on Desormeaux’s post.
“On behalf of the faculty and staff of Apex Friendship High School, please accept our heartfelt condolences,” he said. “We loved Amy so much! She was such a lively, helpful, loving soul to our teachers, staff and students. She will be greatly missed. Please know that we are praying for you and join in your profound sense of loss.”
The school opened in 2015, and Desormeaux was one of the original staffers, Wight said in an interview.
“She had a really funny sense of humor,” he said. “It was a dry sense of humor but she was always willing to stop what she was doing to help people.”
Coworkers, parents and teachers also shared their condolences on social media.
“Apex Friendship Basketball mourns the loss of one of our favorite Patriots,” tweeted PJ Lowman, basketball coach at the high school, calling her “a fun-loving, kind soul that never missed a chance to help or show off her amazing sense of humor. Fly high, Mrs D.”
Sunday was the fourth straight day with more than 100 deaths from the virus reported in North Carolina, The News & Observer reported.
This story was originally published January 24, 2021 3:27 PM.