SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – While thousands of Utahns try to get COVID-19 vaccines, Debbie Iverson was mourning the loss of a close friend that contracted the virus and died just a few days later.

“I got a message Monday there was no brain activity so I knew then that she wasn’t going to be with us,” she said.

Iverson has been friends with “J” for years.

“If you were a friend, you were a member of her family too,” she said. “They just treated you like family.”

Iverson and her husband have taken COVID-19 precautions very seriously. They wear masks, social distance and wash their hands thoroughly and regularly. She never imagined COVID-19 could take her friend.

“She wasn’t someone I figured would die from it if she got it,” said Iverson. “My heart really, really broke for her daughters that were there with her and husband.”

Meanwhile, Iverson and her husband join thousands of other Utahns in their frustration of, unsuccessfully, trying to get vaccinated. Iverson isn’t 70 years old, but her husband is. Still, they haven’t been able to even register for a vaccine appointment due to site crashes.

“I wish they would get an easier process because we’ve been trying to get on the list. We’ve been trying to even register, and we can’t,” she said.

In some places across the state, vaccinations are running smoothly. But Iverson said in St. George, where she and her husband spend their winters, that hasn’t been the case. Frustrating because she knows a vaccine could have saved her friend’s life, and she’s anxious to stack the odds in her own favor when it comes to fighting COVID-19.

“I never had it hit this close to home until now. We lost a really, really wonderful person,” Iverson said.