Dying Woman Pleas With Alexa For Help

A nursing home patient in Michigan with the coronavirus asked Alexa on an Amazon Echo device for help before she died, her sister said.

NBC News reports LouAnn Dagen died April 4, shortly after she was transferred to a hospital in Grand Rapids. She was 66.

She was one of six residents at the nursing home, Metron of Cedar Springs, which is now called Mission Point, who died after contracting the virus, according to the facility. Thirty-one residents and five staff members at the nursing home have tested positive for the virus, a spokesman for the center said.

Paul Pruitt, director of operations at Metron, said Dagen was a resident at the nursing home for 10 years and "had never been transferred to the hospital prior to the complications that rapidly developed as a result of COVID-19."

"Once those symptoms progressed rapidly, and at the advice of her medical team, she was immediately sent to the hospital," Pruitt said.

The medical examiner's office said Dagen's death was caused by diabetes, hypertension and COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to her sister, Penny.

Dagen had two strokes in 2008, which left her paralyzed on her left side, her sister said.

Penny Dagen was unable to visit her sister in person after the nursing home, like others around the country, restricted visitors because of the pandemic. So Alexa became LouAnn Dagen's primary way to communicate with her sister.

It wasn't until Monday that Penny Dagen discovered the recordings from the Amazon device in her sister's room at Metron.

In one of the exchanges, LouAnn Dagen said: "Alexa, help me."

In another, she said: "I am in pain. I have to find a way to relieve it."

She also asked Alexa: "Can you help me cope with pain?" and said: "Oh, Alexa, I'm going to hurt."

Penny Dagen said Thursday through tears: "I just felt bad because I couldn't help her."