The 50-year-old was one of the first Americans to contract Covid-19. His multiple amputations are due to lack of blood flow.
He’s a survivor. Gregg Garfield suffered from a severe form of Covid-19. The doctors who treated him gave him a 1% chance of survival. More than six months after his contamination and after 64 days spent in the hospital, the man is now recovered, but had to have the phalanges of eight fingers removed. His story is told in the American newspaper People.
“I feel like I’m dead”
Gregg Garfield, 54, is in Italy last February for a skiing holiday with friends. The first symptoms appear during the trip and persist on his return. A doctor then gave him one of the few existing tests, and he was positive for Covid-19: he was one of the first people diagnosed in Southern California. On March 5, the 50-year-old was hospitalized. He confided to a friend:I can’t breathe, it gurgles in my lungs, I feel like I’m dead.”
Once in the hospital, his condition deteriorated rapidly and the doctors decided to place him on artificial ventilation. The virus violently attacks his body: the patient suffers from high fevers, his blood pressure drops, a beginning of sepsis appears as well as a staphylococcal infection. In total, he will spend 31 days under artificial respiration.
A “miraculous” according to the doctors
When the doctors removed the ventilator, Gregg Garfield had lost 22 kilos and the use of his fingers. Due to the lack of blood flow to his extremities, doctors had to remove almost all of his upper knuckles. He was released from hospital in May and has been recovering ever since. The American must in particular do physical exercise to rebuild his lungs, but the doctors are amazed by his recovery.
“He not only survived the failure of several of his organs, but he is almost fully recovered, says Daniel Dea, a pulmonologist, specialist in critical cases, who was in charge of the treatment of Gregg Garfield. It’s something miraculous.” Since then, the man has undergone seven operations to repair his fingers but also three of his toes, which have turned black.
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A case far from unique
Other cases of amputation after Covid-19 infection have been recorded around the world. In April, Canadian actor Nick Cordero lost his right leg to a blood clot. AT France Info, Elia, a Belgian basketball player, says she woke up from a coma with one leg missing. “I fell asleep on March 18. I woke up thinking it was the 19th and it was the 15th of April. I had no idea what happenedshe explains. […] They had to explain to me that I was in a coma, that they had to amputate me because it was a question of survival and that I had had an infection.”
When a clot forms in the blood, it blocks blood flow. If it goes up into the lungs, brain or heart, it can cause a pulmonary embolism, stroke or heart attack. When blood thinners are ineffective and doctors cannot remove it, amputation becomes the only solution.
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