5 years on, wife reflects on the family man behind NC’s early COVID-19 tragedy

His name was Adrian Grubbs.

Most of North Carolina first heard the 37-year-old’s name alongside the headline: Raleigh city worker becomes NC’s second coronavirus death.

But his wife Chanda says she will always remember him as a loving husband and her children’s hero.

“He was fun loving and most importantly he was a family man,” she shared. “He took pride in taking care of his family. His kids, they were the joy and loves of his life.”

WRAL first interviewed Chanda Grubbs in April 2020, about two weeks after her husband passed away.

Five years later, the pain is still fresh.

“It really doesn’t feel like it has been that long, but it has,” she said.

His symptoms were mild at first, she recalled, mimicking the common cold.

“He was scrolling through his phone reading some stuff, and I was inquiring about what he was reading on, and he said he was reading up on COVID,” Chanda Grubbs said. “He said, ‘I feel like I might be catching some symptoms of it.’”

Grubbs said he husband got sicker a few days later and eventually left work to go to the emergency room.

He was initially sent home by doctors and told to continue taking medicine.

He grew sicker and returned to the hospital, this time to stay.

“I remember the very last time I was actually with him face-to-face was March 18-19th, because that was the day I took him to the hospital,” said Chanda Grubbs. “I didn’t know that was going to be my last time with him.”

The world was still working to figure out how to handle the new virus. Grubbs remembers hospital protocols at the time prevented her from following her husband to his room after he tested positive for the virus and was admitted.

“It was very hard. Nobody is with him, and he’s just surrounded by doctors,” she said. “You don’t know what’s going on, you’re worried, you’re panicking, and then at the same time, you’re trying to be strong because you’ve got three little ones.”

Adrian Grubbs’ condition grew worse over the following days as he struggled to breathe. He had underlying conditions including high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

The two conditions have since been linked to higher instances of severe COVID-19 infections.

Adrian Grubbs used Facetime from his hospital room to tell his wife that he was making the decision to be placed on a ventilator.

“I said, ‘Is this the route that we need to go and what we want to do?’ and his last words to me were, ‘Yeah, I’m going to do it. I’m going to do what the doctors want me to do,'” Chanda Grubbs said.

That was the last conversation the couple ever shared.

The widow told WRAL she still replays that call in her head “every single day.”

“Sometimes I think, ‘Could I have done this or done that?’ Feeling guilty and feeling like I could’ve done more,” she said.

Adrian Grubbs passed away on March 25, 2020, becoming the first COVID-19 death in Harnett County and the second in the state.

“You’re feeling so helpless. I just did not think that would happen,” his wife said. “It took me by surprise, and I was in a state of shock.”

The couple’s children were aged 13, 8, and 4 months at the time.

Telling them about their father was one of the hardest things she’s ever done.

“It was very tough. He was a hero to them. They loved their dad. They loved him so much,” she said.

Flash forward to 2025, and their eldest son is now attending East Carolina University.

Their middle daughter plays several sports. She is “the female version of her father,” Chanda Grubbs said.

 Their youngest has followed in her sister’s footsteps joining the cheer team with her outgoing personality.

“She is just so vibrant. She is a bossy little girl and so full of energy and full of life,” her mother laughed.

It is toughest to talk to her youngest about her missing father, Chanda Grubbs said.

“We try our best to keep her informed about her father because she will not have any memories like the older two siblings have,” she said. “We try every day to let her know how much of a great dad he was.”

The mom said she believes her husband is still with them saying, “I see a lot of his personality in each of them.”

Speaking to WRAL about her husband and her children’s grief is something she doesn’t think she could’ve done even a year ago.

“I couldn’t even talk about it without getting emotional,” she said. “Now that years have passed, I’m able to talk about it, but it’s heartbreaking.”

When speaking about the progress made in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19, Chanda Grubbs says she knows lessons were learned from cases like her husband's.

While she said she is comforted better protocols are in place now, she will never forget the life taken from her too soon.

“With the pandemic, it’s like it just cheated us out of being with our loved ones. I think about everything from the time he got sick until his death – I think about all that every day,” she said.

“Five years later, now they know what to do. They know how to handle it, and they know how to keep control of it. I’m glad now, but I just wish that they would’ve known all that when it happened,” she shared.

Chanda Grubbs said the family was unable to hold a memorial in the immediate wake of Adrian’s death due to COVID-19 restrictions.

In the years since, the family has held balloon releases in the days surrounding his passing as a reminder he will never be forgotten.