HOLLYWOOD, FLA. (WSVN) - A woman who spent months in a South Florida hospital battling COVID reunited with the doctors, nurses and staff who helped save her life.
7News cameras on Wednesday captured Melissa Stagg, as she stood behind the special mobile unit that took her to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood from the west coast of Florida.
“This is not what it looked like,” she said.
The former patient expressed her gratitude toward the medical staff.
“I’m doing very well. I still have some recovery to go, but these are baby steps,” she said.
The mother of three was healthy and was not suffering from any significant medical issues when she contracted COVID just before Christmas in 2021.
Stagg, who lives in Port St. Lucie, rapidly declined. She was intubated and put on a ventilator, as she struggled to survive.
Stagg needed an ECMO machine, which helps patients in pulmonary failure.
“It’s an incredible process when you think about the ECMO machine,” said Dr. Lance Cohen a specialist in critical care medicine at Memorial Regional. “It’s taking out your entire blood circulation, going through a machine. The machine is providing oxygen to the blood, removing carbon dioxide from the blood and returning it to the patient.”
Because they were nearly two hours away, Stagg’s husband, David Stagg, fought to have Memorial Regional’s ECMO mobile unit come to his wife in Port St. Lucie.
“We were able to bring a team to the hospital where Melissa was. We were able to safely put her in ECMO, stabilize her and enable her safe transport from a hospital that’s nearly two hours away back to Regional,” said Dr. I-wen Wang, a specialist in cardiac surgery at Memorial Regional.
“Our team was able to sustain Melissa on ECMO for 65 days,” said Cohen. “Everything was in multi-organ failure, and our machine and our team were able to allow her body to heal.”
Five months later, just before Mother’s Day, she was released from the hospital.
On Wednesday, she thanked the people who nursed her back to health.
“I just want to say thank you so much to all of you who took the time to take care of me,” she said, “because without this mobile ECMO unit, I would not be here today.”
“Sixty-five days on ECMO, four months on a ventilator, multiple complications with organ failure, but she was able to make it through,” said David Stagg.
Stagg is now off all of her medications. Her lungs are working at 50%, and she continues to improve daily.
The Staggs took a moment to pose for pictures with the Memorial Regional staff.
Stagg said she hopes to spread the word about Memorial Regional’s mobile ECMO unit.
“Without them, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t see my son graduate high school this year; my daughter graduates college next year,” she said. “For them, I am incredibly grateful.”
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