Wife and ‘superpower’ of Wichita radio personality dies after battle with COVID-19
A popular morning show radio host in Wichita lost his wife and “superpower” after her battle with COVID-19.
KFDI-FM 101.3 host JJ Hayes said his wife, 50-year-old Michelle Horne, was back from the hospital nine days and seemed to be improving before she stopped breathing at home Friday night. She had originally gone to the hospital for a surgery on an infection following a non-cancer-related double mastectomy, he said.
She tested positive Labor Day weekend before she was supposed to be discharged. Instead of going home, she was kept in the hospital and her health worsened.
Before she was put on a ventilator, Hayes shared a letter she wrote on his radio show Facebook page.
“For the Covid deniers out there in our friend group let me tell you this. It. Is. Real,” the letter read. “I wish you could’ve spent the afternoon with me listening to the person next-door whose call light was constantly going off as she was coughing and crying and moaning. It was heartbreaking. I feel as if I was listening to her die.
“And for those of you who feel the need to fight the ‘but they didn’t die of Covid they died of something else.’ if I should die in this battle. Even though I have type 2 diabetes, a kidney transplant, CKD. Make no question that I died of COVID-19. Because none of those things brought me to the hospital.”
Hayes shared other posts on the page about his wife’s improvement.
In a Sept. 30 post, they took a selfie together, something they did often, and she appears to have what looked like an oxygen line in her nose.
“Prayer and medicine saved her life,” Hayes wrote. “Tonight this house is a home once more.”
Hayes said they were talking about how much she had been improving Friday night before she took a deep breath and her eyes rolled in back of her head.
It’s those eyes during a first date in Maine that solidified he wanted to marry her. They met online and had talked about sci-fi movies like “Lord of the Rings” and other “nerdy sort of stuff,” he said.
“She had this sparkle in them that just lit up the room she was in,” he said. “It was the thing that really drew me to her.”
He called 911 and stayed on the phone while he did chest compressions. EMS was able to get a “faint heartbeat” and took her to Ascension Via Christi St. Francis but she wasn’t able to pull through.
Hayes suspects the virus was a factor.
Horne liked fostering animals and helped with the charity events that Hayes would emcee.
“I called her my superpower because whenever I was out .. at a radio station event or I was emceeing the numerous charity events we would always go to, she gave me the strength and the mental calmness and the ability to do my very best when I needed to,” Hayes said. “Because I could always look around the room if I ever got nervous or if I ever got concerned I wasn’t doing a good enough job, I could always look around the room and instantly find her and she would give me that courage and calmness and strength that I needed.”
“I lost my superpower yesterday.”
Hayes said he hopes to have a Celebration of Life later this month and possibly at their church, College Hill United Methodist Church.
Sedgwick County has reported 104 COVID-19 deaths so far. Kansas has seen 763 COVID-19 deaths, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
This story was originally published October 10, 2020 at 1:44 PM.