Salina Mother Pleads For Prayers As 15-Year-Old Daughter Battles COVID-19

A 9th grade girl from Salina High School is in the hospital battling COVID-19.  Her family said she is getting stronger but is sedated and on a ventilator. 

Katrina Morgan said her 15-year-old daughter Journey Clark is a bubbly, fun, and otherwise healthy teenage girl, and they never expected for COVID-19 to have this effect on her. 

Last Tuesday, everything was normal for Journey, but on Wednesday, she woke up with a fever. 

"The next day she started running a fever, it was 103. I took her to the emergency room that night," Morgan said. 

Morgan said her daughter ran a high fever for a few days with no other symptoms, but then things got worse. 

"My husband told me, look at her lips, and her lips were turning blue, so I got a pulse oximeter, and her oxygen was like 50 something," Morgan said. 

Journey was admitted to the Pediatric ICU at St. Francis hospital where her mother said she is now on a ventilator. 

"They just said her lungs just need to rest, her body just needs to rest, so they are going to do all the work for her," Morgan said. 

Morgan said no one else in their family got sick, and they aren't sure where Journey contracted the virus. She said she never expected this to happen. 

"My baby was healthy, she was a healthy little girl, and in a matter of a day, she's like she is," Morgan said. 

Morgan said Journey is a fighter and she believes her daughter can feel the support from those around her. 

"Just for her to know all the love that she's receiving from everyone I know that's going to make her happy and I know she can feel that," Morgan said. 

Morgan said the family is strongly asking that everyone say prayers for Journey.