Saul Sanchez, a father of six and a beloved community member in Greeley, Colo., was one of thousands of meatpacking employees who contracted the coronavirus. He died of COVID-19 at age 78.

Originally from Rio Grande, Zacatecas. He met his wife m in Juarez, Mexico and had six children - three girls, three boys. In 1973, his daughter Patty got sick and needed urgent treatment in the U.S. Eventually, their family moved to Greeley, Colo., where Saul worked at the JBS meat processing plant.

When Saul got sick in mid-March, his health quickly declined, and he had to be put on a ventilator in a hospital. His family wasn't supposed to be able to visit him in his final days. But one of his daughters is a nurse at that hospital, so she was able to be with Saul until the very end.

In the words of his daughter: “I don't know what pain is worse - my sister Patty to have sat there and watched them take him off the ventilator and watched him take his last breath or for us that we weren't able to be there and hold his hand and tell him how much we loved him.”

Story via NPR