The son of one of the first deaths in the WYMT coverage area is talking about his father and the man he was.

Dustin Pitman's father David died last week from the coronavirus. The night he died, Dustin posted a heartfelt message on Facebook to try to communicate how serious people need to take the virus.

For everybody asking, please feel free to share, if it saves one person then to me it means my dad is still helping out after his passing,( @1:12am on 4/2/2020) Posted by Dustin Pitman on Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Dustin says his dad was a fighter, beating stage 2 colon cancer before losing his final battle to COVID-19.

"That night we got the phone call, you know we're just gonna go ahead and pull the plug on dad, and I asked them I said can you please wait, I said we're the only two able to go down there," Dustin says.

The Pitman family cremated David, per his wishes. They are waiting until after the pandemic to have a celebration of life.

"I guess what I'm trying to get out of this is, maybe his death can be used for good so people really know how bad this is. Maybe these people that are meeting in big groups will stay home," Dustin says in his live Facebook video.

Dustin says he found some relief learning that his father's hearing was probably the last thing to go. He was able to say goodbye.

You can see the original story from our sister station WKYT