A veteran ICU nurse left the hospital this week after being treated there for eight months for COVID-19.
Merlin Pambuan, 66, was on a respirator for four months at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, California, after being sedated in May, The Washington Post reported.
Nurses and doctors applauded on Monday when Pambuan walked the corridors of St. Mary’s, where she worked for the medical center for 40 years.
Nurse Merlin Pambuan was applauded by co-workers on leaving after eight months of treatment for COVID-19 at a California hospital where she worked for the past 40 years https://t.co/YPXNk00mkk pic.twitter.com/tzkcEpAk3k
– Reuters (@Reuters) December 23, 2020
“I am grateful,” she told Reuters. “This is my second life.”
The nurse hired COVID-19 after treating infected patients in the spring.
According to his doctor, Pambuan reportedly came close to dying “several times”.
“On several occasions, she was very close to death,” her doctor, Maged Tanios, told Reuters. “I would say this has happened at least half a dozen times.”
Tanios, a specialist in pulmonary and intensive care, reportedly said he was unaware of other hospital staff who were admitted to the ICU for coronavirus infections. Still, healthcare providers are at the greatest risk of contracting COVID-19 due to their environment, prompting employees to make them the first priority for vaccines.
Pambuan said she has no memory of the four months she spent connected to the breathing machine from early May to early September, according to the news service, which added that she said she did not feel the extremities after deep sedation.
She spent the past few months after September recovering and undergoing physical and respiratory rehabilitation.
For others like her suffering from COVID-19, she tells people not to “lose hope”.
“Just fight. Fight, because look at me, you know. I’m going home and I’m walking,” added Pambuan, according to Reuters.