Her father was a healthy, 49-year-old bricklayer on a job. Then the coronavirus caught him

Sarah Jordan wants you to know her father’s name.

She wants you to know his face.

She wants you to know that the father of seven — and grandfather to seven more — had a kind heart, an unrelenting sense of humor and a passion for glam-bands like KISS.

She wants you to know he loved his wife and their home in Ashland, Kentucky.

Most importantly, Sarah Jordan wants you to know that her dad, ARon Jordan, just 49-years-old and in otherwise good health, died Tuesday after testing positive for the novel coronavirus.

"Out of all the people I was scared to get sick," she said, "he wasn't the one."

ARon Jordan is believed to be the youngest of Kentucky's COVID-19 victims — a group, that as of Sunday, had risen to at least 45 people, and Gov. Andy Beshear warned, could reach into the thousands. 

More:Who are Kentucky's coronavirus victims? Here's what we know (and why we don't know more)

On Monday, Sarah Jordan and her immediate family members will gather at an Ashland cemetery to say goodbye to her father.

They will have to stand 6 feet apart. They will never even see the casket.

Her father will already be underground.

"We never get to see him again," Sarah said Friday, struggling to hold back tears.

Nearly three weeks ago, on March 16, ARon Jordan left his Boyd County home and set out on a work trip that was only supposed to last a few days. 

Read this:From weddings to dream trips, how coronavirus is canceling some of life's seminal moments

The union bricklayer headed north for Detroit — a city that would soon grab national headlines as a hotspot of coronavirus cases.

By the time the project was complete, ARon realized he likely had been exposed to someone infected with the coronavirus while at his work site. Rather than head home to Ashland, he chose to quarantine at a Detroit hotel so he didn't risk exposing his family.

He told his wife, Mandy. But he instructed her not to tell anyone else. He didn't want his children to worry.

While at the hotel, ARon fell ill.

He couldn't hold down food and his stomach was constantly upset. He developed a fever.

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But when he went to a Detroit hospital and reported his symptoms, he was turned away, said Sarah Jordan, who later learned about the series of events.

"They told him he wasn't presenting the right symptoms and that his fever wasn't high enough," Sarah said, noting the hospital was in Henry Ford Health System, though she was unsure of the exact facility. "He tried to get tested, and they told him no."

ARon returned to his hotel room to continue quarantining, where, by March 29, his breathing became so labored he couldn't walk. An ambulance took him back to the same hospital, where he was placed on a ventilator and eventually moved into the ICU, Sarah Jordan said.

That is when Sarah and her siblings learned of their father's condition. But it was too late to talk to him.

Still, the hospital told Mandy, Sarah's stepmom, not to come to Detroit — his condition was stable and a March 30 chest X-ray showed signs of improvement. Even if she came, she wouldn't be able to see him, hospital staff said.

Also:Hospitals 'burning through' PPE to fight the coronavirus turn to 'extreme measures'

The next day, on March 31, ARon suffered cardiac arrest.

Over the phone, the family received the news.

"They said they tried to resuscitate him and his lungs popped like tires and there was nothing they could do any more," Sarah Jordan recalled.

The Courier Journal contacted a spokesperson for the Henry Ford Health System late Friday and did not receive a response.

Sarah, a 26-year-old mom of two, has since had to explain to her children that they won't see their grandfather again. She's had to worry about her two youngest siblings, both still in high school.

She's had to confront her own grief — and the loss neither she nor her father saw coming.

"He wasn't prepared," she said "He had just bought a new truck. He didn't even have a will. He had no reason to believe his life on this earth was going to be cut short any time soon."

As she's begun to process her father's death, Sarah said she's seen people on Facebook continuing to treat the deadly virus as a joke.

And she knows that in public, some are continuing to flaunt the social distancing rules put in place to keep them and their loved ones safe.

In Lexington:University of Kentucky setting up field hospital at Nutter Field House

Sarah wonders what it will take for their attitudes and actions to change.

"I want them to know, it's here and it's real," she said.

Beshear, who has provided daily updates about the coronavirus — including a count of Kentucky lives lost — said last week he worried Kentuckians could become "desensitized" to the numbers he reports.

After The Courier Journal published this story Friday evening, Beshear became aware of ARon's passing.

During his Saturday briefing, Beshear, visibly emotional, noted that ARon was just seven years his senior.

"This is one of the folks that we've lost," Beshear said, pointing to photos of ARon, his wife and children. "An amazing person, loved by his family and by his community. So every one of these losses is very, very real."

ARon's decision to stay in Detroit — and to keep his illness from his children for as long as he could — summed up the type of man he was, Sarah Jordan said. 

"There wasn't a thing he wouldn't do for his family," she said.

"He made that decision to stay away and protect us," she continued. "He made that sacrifice to never see his family again."

So Sarah Jordan wants you to know her father's name.

She wants you to know his face.

And now she wants to know from you:

What are you willing to sacrifice? 

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Mandy McLaren: 502-582-4525; mmclaren@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @mandy_mclaren. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/mandym.