MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Covid restrictions are loosening up nationally and here in the Mid-South, but some are scared that lives will be lost if safety is completely thrown out the window.
Memphis native Corey Warren was a hero not just to his loved ones, but to strangers in real life. WREG covered the story three years ago when Warren and a co-worker rescued a mother and her young daughter from a burning apartment.
“He was an all-around good guy,” said his wife Corshunder Warren. “He would do anything for anybody. He had a heart of gold.”
Last November, Warren contracted Covid-19. Perfectly healthy before the virus, his lungs and kidney began failing. He spent three months in the hospital before he died in February.
“He fought a long fight, and we thought he was coming home. He was up one day and he’d be down the next,” said Corshunder Warren. “But he fought a long fight.”
As the Warren family makes funeral arrangements for their loved one, they see restrictions loosening across the country, including in Mississippi where Governor Tate Reeves lifted the state’s mask mandate.
“It stuns me,” his wife told WREG. “This stuff is happening every day and it’s taking people’s lives every day.”
The family doesn’t wish their heartbreak and loss on anyone else. While acknowledging the need for businesses to reopen and a desire for normalcy, they hope families find a way to stay safe as well.
“It’s not worth it. It’s not. It’s not worth it at all. For someone’s life to be taken out of nowhere from a virus? It’s not worth it,” she said.
The Warren family told WREG the funeral will be Saturday and they’re planning a balloon release to celebrate his life.