Family mourns Navajo Nation woman who died 5 days after COVID-19 diagnosis

PHOENIX - A grandmother and member of the Navajo Nation is being mourned after she passed away from COVID-19 while being hospitalized in Phoenix.

Loved ones are talking about the loss of their loved one after the virus took her life in just days.    

“5 days. 5 days it took for the virus to take her away," says her granddaughter Jessica Arviso.

In those few days, a family lost one of their rocks.

Arviso said her grandmother, 78-year-old Lynne Denetdeel, was a loving woman and proud member of the Navajo Nation.

The family lives in Phoenix, and Denetdeel got sick just last week.

“They called her 2 days later and said she tested positive for the coronavirus. The next day they took her to ICU, and on April 24th she was gone”

Denetdeel's family says she was active and took public transportation to get around town. They speculate that’s where she may have contracted the virus.

“This is a really real thing, and it’s not real until it happens to your family and takes somebody that you love," Arviso said.

Now they’re watching the virus ravage the Navajo Nation in the northern part of the state, an area where leaders say getting assistance has been difficult and slowing the spread has been tough.

“Our grandmother is a number, and it hurts because we’re not just a number. We have feelings. We hurt. We’re just a reservation, just a tribe, but no. That’s my family, and that’s where we come from," Arviso said.

To help the family with memorial costs, you can donate on their GoFundMe page.