Survival story: Nurse leaves Long Beach hospital after 8 months as a COVID-19 patient

LONG BEACH, California (KABC) – It was a day that a local nurse thought she would never arrive.

After nearly dying several times during eight months of treatment for the coronavirus, Merlin Pambuan finally left the hospital on Monday.

Pambuan was not just a patient at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach – but he had worked as a nurse there for 40 years.

Doctors say she has been close to death several times and has had painful physical therapy just to be able to stand again, but she survived.

The hospital staff applauded when she finally left to go home.

She advised other patients who were struggling with COVID-19: “Just fight. Fight. Because look at me: I’m going home and I’m walking.”

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