A 42-year-old fitness fanatic was 'beating himself up' over his decision not to get vaccinated during his final days, his family said

John Eyres from Southport, Merseyside.

Jenny MCann

• A 42-year-old British man who loved exercise and eating healthy died of COVID-19 last week.
• John Eyers didn't get vaccinated because he "felt that he would be ok," his family said.
• The father-of-one told doctors in his final days that he regretted his decision not to get a vaccine.
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

An unvaccinated 42-year-old fitness fanatic who regularly climbed mountains and competed in the ironman has died of COVID-19, his family said.

John Eyers, a construction expert and bodybuilding competitor from the seaside town of Southport, England, died last week, one month after catching the virus.

The father-of-one was a "healthy" and "very active" person who was climbing mountains and camping in the wilderness just four weeks before he got sick, his twin sister, Jenny McCann, said on Twitter.

Read more: All the differences between COVID-19 vaccines, summarized in a simple table

Social media pictures show Eyers' bouldering, cycling, running, and lifting weights. A friend who paid tribute to him on Facebook described him as "one of the most active and fit people I knew."

McCann told Sky News that her brother didn't get vaccinated because he "felt that he would be ok" and "didn't know anyone who had contracted COVID."

"Secondly, he had bought slightly into this age of disinformation that we are living in and some conspiracy theories about the safety of the vaccine and what's in [it]," she said, according to Sky News.

-jenny mccann (@jennyeye) August 2, 2021

Before he was put onto a ventilator, he told his doctors he wished he had been vaccinated, she added.

"He was beating himself up and wished he had done it," McCann told Sky News, adding that he personally didn't tell her this because he was a "really proud and stubborn man."

Eyers' family is now encouraging people to get vaccinated.

His 19-year-old daughter, Macey May Curran, told the Liverpool Echo that her father was her "real-life superhero, my best friend, and my dad."

"Please, please, please get your vaccine, I was one of the young girls who only got the vaccine to go on 'holidays,' but now I've seen the reality of what COVID actually does to us," she said, according to the Echo. "Standing beside a hospital bed watching my dad and him not knowing I'm by his side kills me."

COVID-19 patients have increasingly spoken out about their regret of not getting the vaccine. So far, around 58% of the United Kingdom's population has been fully vaccinated, according to a Reuters tracker.

More than 130,000 people in the country have died from the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

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