Montana victim's son: 'You will know someone who dies'

The last time Jim Tomlin, 77, saw his wife, Marcia, he was being loaded into an ambulance at their home at Bull Lake south of Troy, where he had begun feeling feverish and confused, and suffering a persistent cough Monday evening.

Having just returned from a California vacation as that state went into lockdown, health care workers were concerned it could be COVID-19, and wouldn’t let his wife ride along, in hopes of preventing any further infections.

Three days later he died at a hospital in Kalispell, the state’s first coronavirus death. His death came 7 minutes after Gov. Steve Bullock ordered the state's residents to shelter in place starting Saturday.

His son, G. Scott Tomlin, documented on social media the stress, the waves of hope and the crushing loneliness suffered by his father as he succumbed to the pandemic. A Facebook post Thursday night, just hours after his father died, has been shared more than a thousand times. On Friday, Tomlin recounted the experience to the Missoulian, in hopes people will take the threat of the virus seriously, even in a rural place like Montana's northwestern corner.

Because Libby is a hotspot for lung diseases due to the past asbestos mining there, Jim Tomlin was under the care of a highly trained respiratory specialist, his son said, leaving the family relieved by the high level of care he was receiving.

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