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Bob Saget said he didn't 'feel good' and his HEARING was 'off' to venue staff hours before death

"He said he had been sick the night before, he said he had a sore throat, that he was happy he had lozenges for the stage," Rosalie Cocci said

Rosalie Cocci, a staffer at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall who runs errands for the theater's performers and crew, described her encounters with Bob Saget to the Orange County Police at his final stand-up gig on January 8, just hours before he was found dead.

Cocci said the 65-year-old comic complained he wasn't feeling well in the hours before he died and claimed to be suffering from "long-term COVID" effects, as well as hearing impairment, according to newly released audio obtained by PEOPLE.

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According to Cocci, "I did hear him say, 'I don't feel good, but I'm ready to do the show. This is what I do this for.' He kinda seemed like he was talking himself up." Saget tested positive for COVID weeks before his death and was likewise positive at the time of his autopsy. "He stated himself that... it was taking his body a long time to get over [COVID]," she explained. "He said that his hearing had been off and that was the case that night. He was asking the sound guys to turn everything up."

"He said he had been sick the night before, he said he had a sore throat, that he was happy he had lozenges for the stage," Cocci went on to say, and later added, "Mr. Saget's soundcheck lasted a while." Cocci's position required her to buy any food or beverages Saget desired as part of her responsibilities. However, she said in the tape that his rider list was "cut-down in half" the night of his performance.

"All there was on there was drinks. He wanted Redbull, Diet Coke and regular Coke and that was it, " she said, adding that she never saw Saget "ingest" anything throughout the evening, "not even water on stage." Despite what Saget disclosed, Cocci told police that the beloved comic "seemed okay" and that the news of his death was shocking.

"He wasn't sweating, he didn't miss a beat, nothing slurred," she said of Saget's stand-up routine in the police interview. "He seemed okay. He really did and it was very surprising the next day... He came out very energetic, and in the half-an-hour I saw him, he was very much entertaining the crowd."

Saget died on January 9, before his body was discovered in his Ritz-Carlton hotel room in Orlando, Florida. He was laid to rest five days later. Saget died as a consequence of "blunt head trauma," according to Chief Medical Examiner Joshua Stephany, MD, who ruled the manner of his death an accident unrelated to any illicit drugs or poisons. Furthermore, the comedian's post-mortem report revealed that when he died, he had serious fractures in the back of his head and around his eyes.