BURBANK (KNX) - Three years ago, Gregg Garfield did something his doctor called a miracle: he walked out of the hospital alive.
On Monday, he returned to Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank to thank the medical team that saved his life.
Garfield, a resident of Studio City, was relatively young, healthy, and athletic before he suddenly fell ill in March 2020. He had just come back from a ski trip in Italy, where the newly-discovered COVID-19 was beginning to spread, KCAL reported.
“They came to my house with a hazmat team to take me to get tested,” Garfield said. The test came back positive. He was one of the first people in Southern California to contract COVID-19.
24 hours later, Garfield was struggling to breathe, and he called an ambulance to take him to the hospital.
Garfield wouldn’t leave St. Joseph for 64 days. He spent 31 days in a medically induced coma. His doctor said he had a 1% chance of survival.
“We all thought that, because there are people just like Greg who didn’t make it,” Garfield’s doctor said. “But he was one of our miracle patients who survived.”
When Garfield left the hospital, he was severely weakened and had lost 50 pounds. It took him six months to be able to walk normally again. But three years later, he’s made an amazing recovery — all thanks to the doctors and nurses who managed his care.
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