Minnesota Timberwolves star Karl-Anthony Towns posted a video to Instagram on Tuesday night detailing the events that led to his mother, Jacqueline Cruz, being placed into a coma. The 24-year-old said his mother was suspected of having Covid-19.
“I think it’s important that everyone understands the severity of what’s happening in the world right now with the coronavirus, and I think where my life is right now could help, so I decided to do this video and give you an update of where I’m at,” Towns said.
He said his parents began to feel ill last week and he and his sister had urged their mother to go to hospital and get tested for Covid-19. After treatment his mother had started to feel better, while his father was released from hospital and told to self-quarantine. However, Cruz’s condition then deteriorated. Towns did not say whether the results for his parents’ tests had come back.
“She was feeling great,” Towns, who had to pause several times during the video to collect himself, said. “We talked, and she felt she turned the corner. I felt she was turning the corner. I knew there was more days to come, but I felt that we were heading in the right direction. They said that she went sideways and things had went sideways quick. And her lungs were … getting worse, and she was having trouble breathing and they were just explaining to me that she had to be put on a ventilator. And she was getting worse, and she was confused by everything, and I’m trying to talk to her about everything and encourage and stay positive, just talk through everything with her.”
Towns said he had last spoken to his mother just before she was placed into a medically induced coma. “Since that day, I haven’t talked to her, haven’t been able to obviously communicate with her,” he said. “I’ve just been getting updates on her condition. It’s rough, and day by day we’re just seeing how it goes. We’re being positive; I’m being very positive. So I’m just keeping the strength up for everybody and my family.”
Conspiracy theories have been circulating in the US, spreading the false rumour that Covid-19 is a hoax. Towns said he was making the video to warn others of the dangers of the virus. “I hope my story helps,” he said. “I hope my story gives you the correct information. Send my love to all your families. I’m praying for every single one of you guys. Give everyone my thoughts and my prayers, and life may keep throwing punches at me, but I’ll keep getting back up. And I ain’t going to quit at any time and neither will my whole family, neither will my mother. Dominican women are strong, I know they are. My mother is the strongest women I know, and I know she’ll beat this, and we’re going to rejoice when she does. Love you guys, and I’ll talk to you later.”
Towns, who was the No1 overall pick in the 2015 NBA draft, grew up in New Jersey and his mother worked at the state’s Rutgers University for 20 years. New Jersey and neighbouring New York are at the centre of the Covid-19 outbreak in the US.
