Branford Son's Social Media Plea Overwhelms, Overturns Hospital COVID-19 Policy Barring Visits During Mom's Last Days
A Branford son took to social media overnight to overwhelm -- and overturn-- Smilow Cancer Hospital's COVID-19 precautions barring his family from visiting their dying mother during her final days. The policy had originally allowed that the family would be given visitation only during her final hours, according to his post.
Griffin Lynch, who graduated with the Branford High School Class of 2017 and captained its football team, put out an Instagram plea on March 18 that quickly went viral, gathering nearly 160,000 likes and 12,500 comments and countless reposts by the morning of March 19, when the family learned the visits would be allowed. In his post of March 18, beneath a photo of him with his mom and dad on the campus of Ohio State University, Lynch also tagged his mother's site of care at Yale-New Haven Hospital's Smilow Cancer Hospital.
"Instagram, I need your help, do your thing," Lynch posted, in part on March 18. "My mom has 3 - 4 days left to live and @yalenewhavenhealth and @smilowcancerhospital will not let us be with her until its her last couple hours, due to Covid-19."
Lynch followed up with a post early on March 19, beneath a photo of himself, his two brothers and their parents: "I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to every single one of you who has reached out, shared, tagged people, made phone calls, tried everything you could in your power to help me and my family be a family again. We just got word that every restriction has been lifted and we have complete and unlimited access to our Mom for the rest of the time. So sincerely from the bottom of my heart, thank you guys from me, my brothers and my Dad. As well as from my mom."