A 14-year-old girl died after she she got sick from the flu, just a week before her birthday. John Cádiz Klemack reports for the NBC4 News at 11 on Friday, Feb 9, 2018.
Friends and family of a 14-year-old Thousand Oaks girl are heartbroken after Gabriella Chabot died of complications related to the flu.
Mourners gathered inside La Reina High School’s gymnasium to honor the teen in a vigil, where the school community participated in a prayer for the teen.
"We have prayers for her parents, her sister and her brother," Sharon Hobbie, Chabot’s grandmother said.
This season’s flu has proven to be unforgiving as the Department of Public Health has reported that 158 deaths have been caused by the illness in Los Angeles County alone.
"We never anticipated that the flu is going to get this bad," physician Alice Benjamin said.
Chabot's relatives told NBC4 that the teenager got the flu two weeks ago and had improved symptoms after taking Tamiflu. On Thursday, however, Chabot left school early and was rushed to the hospital before she died.
Her father, Michael Chabot, declared his devastation on a Facebook post.
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"Today, I experienced the day no parents should," Chabot's father wrote. "I lost my daughter, my angel."
Chabot would have turned 15-years-old on Feb. 16.
