An 18-year-old North Little Rock High School senior who a family member said was in “perfect health” died suddenly Sunday evening.
“She apparently had a pulmonary embolism that was just too far advanced to stop it,” Victoria Moody’s older sister, Brooke McCarty, told KARK-TV.
McCarty said her father, Brian Moody, took daughter Victoria to the hospital after the high school cheerleader complained of not feeling well.
“I just wish more than anything that she could still be here, and I just don’t really understand how it happened, or why it happened,” McCarty said.
A pulmonary embolism occurs when a blood clot or multiple clots get stuck in an artery in the lungs and cut off oxygen flow to the body, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Anyone can suffer unexpectedly from a pulmonary embolism, the Mayo Clinic said, although there are certain risk factors that make them more likely. Those factors include heart disease, some cancers and particularly bad bouts of coronavirus.
“People who have severe symptoms of COVID-19 have an increased risk of pulmonary embolism,” according to the Mayo Clinic.
KARK did not report on whether Moody had previously contracted COVID-19 or had been vaccinated against it.
“She was going to go to [the University of Arkansas] or Mississippi State,” McCarty said. “She had gotten scholarships, and she gotten invited into the honors program.”
“She was absolutely the best human being I knew and I’m forever grateful for the 18 years that I got to be with her,” she added.
You can see the original KARK report here:
“She always makes you want to be a better person, because she’s perfect in every way,” McCarty said.
Family members and friends held a candlelight vigil for Moody on Monday night and a balloon release the following day, KARK reported.
Brian Moody expressed gratitude for the support he’d gotten from the community and said that he hoped local businesses selling merchandise memorializing his daughter would donate their profits to “developing more research towards pulmonary embolisms,” according to the outlet.
Moody’s obituary said that she had been “lovingly welcomed into the arms of our Savior on Sunday, October 23, 2022.”
“Though our hearts are broken, we rejoice and take comfort in knowing Victoria is now in her Heavenly home and we will see her again someday,” it said.
It also quoted Rev. 21:4: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
