-That's it.
Last time I saw my wife walking and healthy,
this is where I drop her off, here.
-Rosemary Coutou-Figaro was a nurse
at Kingsbrook Hospital in Brooklyn.
Her husband, Vincent, a bus driver in Philadelphia.
They met one summer at a birthday party in Coney Island.
-And then, when I saw Rose for the first time,
it was love at first sight.
Three months later, we were married.
Never looked back, and we kept shooting for the heights.
-For seven years, they visited each other on weekends.
They loved to travel, along with Rosemary's son, Winston --
Cancún, Canada, Las Vegas, Trinidad to see their families.
Vincent was always planning the next trip, even in March,
when he dropped his wife off at work that final time.
-I said, "Babe, I love you." I said, "Babe, be careful."
"Just be careful," I said,
because we was to go Hawaii next month.
But then the corona come, and it change all that.
-In New York, the deadliest day so far.
-New York has nearly half of
all the coronavirus infections here in the US.
-New York had become the epicenter of the pandemic.
Hospitals were overrun with COVID cases,
and protective gear was in short supply.
Nurses and doctors were working around the clock.
-Hospitals are reeling, with New York City's mayor
warning they will run out of supplies by this weekend.
-Rosemary was on the night shift when she came down with a cough.
She went to an urgent-care facility.
They sent her home with antibiotics.
It didn't help.
-When I called her again, I didn't hear my wife.
All I hearing is garble, and my wife had lost her voice.
This thing had taken over her throat and her system,
and you know, like laryngitis, and I couldn't understand.
I said, "Babe," I said, "No, no, no, no,
no, I don't like what's going on there."
I said, "Listen, you need to go back to the emergency room.
I want you to hang up."
And that's the last time we talk, the last time
I hear my wife voice, yeah.
What voice?
[scoffs] What she had.
-When she arrived at Kingsbrook,
she was hospitalized immediately and tested for COVID-19.
The next day, the results came.
She texted Vincent.
-"I also tested positive for the virus."
I said, "I knew that since I heard your voice."
That's me, "You could have told me, babe.
I knew you were hiding it from me."
-Vincent has diabetes, and worried for his health,
Rosemary told her husband not to come.
-She make sure she died protecting me, too.
"I'm tired.
Love you."
And I tell her, "Love you," and that was it.
That was the last text I ever get from my wife.
-For the next two weeks,
Vincent waited for updates from the nurses.
Rosemary seemed to be improving.
Then, on April 9th, she began to deteriorate rapidly.
Doctors offered Vincent a final chance to say goodbye,
through FaceTime.
-So, then I see her there, and she still had the hoses
and thing in her mouth.
I beg, I say, "Oh, talk to me, say something.
Babe, don't do that, don't do that,
don't do that," you know? And I plead.
-Do you think she heard you? -Yeah, I know she heard me.
I know she heard, and I begged.
I say, "You promise me that we growing old together.
Please, don't leave me like this."
-Rosemary is one in a growing number of US healthcare workers
who have died of coronavirus.
The website Medscape has documented over 200.
But with no comprehensive figures being kept,
the true toll is unknown.
-When they are done cremating her,
they're going to put it in the urn.
So I bring it.
I had to wait for them to open up.
I will call you back later. I can't talk now.
Late yesterday, I come off the quarantine from the 14 days.
-What we lost here is, like, the foundation of this family.
Rosemary loved what she did.
That's all she does -- work, take care of the sick,
take care of her son, take care of her family.
-Rosemary's parents and 10 siblings are in Trinidad,
where she was born and raised.
In her final days, she sent messages to her sister Oniquica.
-This is the picture that she sent.
And in my mind, everything flash across,
"Is she going to die?
Is she going to make it?
How my family is going to feel if she dies?"
I didn't tell anybody.
I didn't tell anybody anything,
because she did not want my mother to be worried at all,
given the condition my mother was in.
-When their mother suffered a stroke two years ago,
Rosemary had been a pillar of support.
She was always there for her family, as well as her patients,
but Rosemary died alone.
-[sobbing] -When we broke the news to my parents,
my brothers and sisters came together,
and we had to tell our mother and father,
"Rosemary, she was helping plenty people,
and nobody wasn't there to help her."
From the moment I said that, Mommy fold up
and she started to cry.
That moment was -- was horrifying.
Everybody was crying.
I just slipped out the room.
And I went in my van, and I screamed out.
-The family cannot go to New York to mourn her,
but they hope that one day,
Vincent can bring her ashes home.
-None of us could travel to go to even bring closure
to what has recently happened.
It's almost like it's a dream, it's a nightmare I'm having.
My son is 11.
He say, "Mommy, I'm sad, but I cannot cry.
Why I cannot cry?"
We probably might come to terms
when we know we're expecting her in July,
when we expecting her for Christmas, and she's not here.
Life will not be the same with Vincent.
When Vincent met Rose, like, he really meet a flower, Rose.
A big part of him is gone.
I know a big part of him is gone.
-Hmm, nothing is here.
Trying, I'm trying.
Every time you turn, you want to know if you're
waking up out of this nightmare.
But as the days goes along, you realize
it's not a nightmare.
It's for real.
Yeah, it's for real.
Yeah.