NY patient goes home after 10 days on ventilator

NY patient goes home after 10 days on ventilator

When 33-year-old Janet Mendez arrived in a New York hospital almost three weeks ago she was gravely ill, but has made a miraculous recovery.

Joe Davies reports.

SOUNDBITE (English) DOCTOR SPEAKING TO PATIENT JANET MENDEZ (NAME UNKNOWN) SAYING: "Ms Mendez, today is the day you're going home." Easter Monday (April 13) came with a gift for Janet Mendez: She was allowed home from hospital in New York, almost three weeks after she went in.

She has severely damaged lungs.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) PATIENT WHO SURVIVED CORONAVIRUS, JANET MENDEZ SAYING: "Finally, they are sending me home.

It's been a long journey, especially not for me, but for my family, because they were the ones up.

They were the ones praying.

They were the ones going every single day through my journey, and while I was sleeping." (SOUNDBITE) (English) PATIENT WHO SURVIVED CORONAVIRUS, JANET MENDEZ, SPEAKING TO DOCTORS, SAYING: "I'm thankful to all of you guys." Mendez could barely breathe when she arrived in hospital.

The 33-year-old had 20 minutes to call her family before doctors put her asleep in an effort to save her life.

She spent 10 days on a ventilator.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) PATIENT WHO SURVIVED CORONAVIRUS, JANET MENDEZ SAYING: "People were saying when I came in, I was was blue.

I remember perfectly well that I looked at my face and I looked like a Smurf.

So I got scared." (SOUNDBITE) (English) DOCTOR SPEAKING TO PATIENT JANET MENDEZ (NAME UNKNOWN) SAYING: "In fact, some air leaked out of the lungs and you got swollen up, and then we got the air to not leak anymore.

We did some special things.

We put you in a face down position and then a face up position, back and forth like this for a few days, and all through that your lungs recovered.

You got all the medicines that we know how to give for COVID." Her recovery was so remarkable, hospital staff applauded her as she was wheeled out.

The hospital's chief of Cardiovascular Surgery, Dr, John Puskas, couldn't contain his delight.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) CHIEF OF CARDIOVASCULAR SURGERY AT MOUNT SINAI MORNINGSIDE, DR. JOHN PUSKAS SAYING: "This is a triumph.

A really sick woman who was mortally ill, on the ventilator for 10 days.

Now off the ventilator, completely recovered and going home to her family.

I'm delighted and grateful for our team." Mendez will now continue her recovery at home.