Tennessee doctor faces COVID-19 after helping patients in New York

Dr. Matthew King was on a plane flight back from New York when he started to cough.

As a pulmonary and critical care specialist at Sumner Regional Medical Center, he had spent more than a month on the front lines, caring for sick and dying patients infected with COVID-19 in Tennessee. Then, during his two weeks of respite, he flew to the East Coast to answer the urgent plea for help at New York hospitals.

He had seen up close the devastation the disease can cause. And yet, as he returned home exhausted and overwhelmed, he dismissed the tickle in his throat.

The next day, his temperature spiked and a test confirmed it. He had the virus he had been fighting so hard against. And, like his patients, he would have to face it alone.

King had chosen to self-quarantine from his family more than a month ago — before he worked a single day on the COVID unit. He knew he would be high-risk for getting sick, and he also knew how hard it would be to keep his family safe if he did. The health of his wife, two teenage daughters and 7-yearold son was his first priority.

During his time in isolation, he missed celebrating his now 13-year-old daughter Lowell’s birthday, which was incredibly hard. He also turned 43 years old without his family.

This is his account from the front lines treating ill patients as a doctor — and from the couch in his home in East Nashville, where he now fights the disease alone.

URGENT PLEA FROM NYC

Every day, I watched Governor Andrew Cuomo get on TV and call for help for medical professionals. I was supposed to have two weeks off, and, honestly, I was sitting there thinking: “Who else is going to do this if not me?” My family was gone, and I wasn’t going to be working. All my responsibilities were taken care of. I was planning on doing a lot of turkey hunting — but I’m not a very good turkey hunter. So I answered the call.

I talked about it with my wife before I made any commitment. At first, I think she kind of thought I was crazy and was wondering what was going through my head. As we talked more, she realized it was something I felt compelled to do and within a couple minutes of our conversation she turned from incredulous to supportive. That’s one of the things I love about my wife, she knows me well and will support me in whatever I feel passionate in doing.

But it was discouraging trying to find a way to get up there. There was no system in place. I was left searching online to find what hospitals needed help. That’s where I ran across other people’s stories on how they had done it. Many said it was almost impossible to directly connect with a hospital and get credentialed and get paperwork done in time to get up there and work without an established recruiting company.

And I understand that. You have to set up a flight and lodging, secure medical malpractice insurance and most hospitals don’t have ability to do that in short notice.

I spent four days working in a county hospital in Long Island. It was eye opening. It was a very different experience than I had at Sumner Regional.

The hospital in New York was huge — a Level 1 trauma center. On a normal day, it fills fourtimes more ICU beds than Sumner Regional does. And right now, it had turned virtually everything into an ICU. Inside, patients everywhere were on ventilators. And ventilators of all shapes and types; they were using things not meant to be ventilators in hospitals.

My team (focused) on people in the ICU, and there was pretty much an endless supply of critical patients.

‘BATTLEFIELD TRIAGE’

It was scary when I first got up there. I didn’t know what I was going to be getting into. I knew the amount of coronavirus they had up there and the number of cases. I knew it could be overwhelming. I heard from the recruiter I worked with that the hospital where I volunteered had 25 deaths on the Sunday before I got in there. Twenty five deaths in a day is alarming to me — it is more than our hospital has had through the entire pandemic to date.

When I got in there, I understood. They had been working hard for a number of weeks without relief, and you could see how stretched they were with their resources. It was clear they needed help.

Because they are so stretched, if someone needed resuscitation they didn’t have the ability. Normally, if someone calls “code blue” people come in from all over the floor to help. I was a few hallways away when one was called and there was very little response. Most people looked up and went back to what they were doing while two or three nurses and doctors gave medication. But they didn’t do CPR or a lot of other things we would do on other patients who had a better chance of survival.

It was battlefield triage. It made me feel sorry for them and what they’ve gone through.

For every nurse or resident I talked to, it was a feeling of disbelief. But, for the most part, they were all fairly relieved at the time when I was up there because they had started to see a drop in volumes. There were still a lot of people getting worse and needing to come the ICU, but there weren’t as many new cases coming through the ER. It was 10 a day, which seemed like a lot to me, but to them it seemed like getting a breath of air.

A COUGH COMES ON

I started to have a little bit of cough on the flight back from

New York. It wasn’t anything dramatic, and I kind of dismissed it, honestly. I got back early morning Monday, and as the day progressed I could tell something was off. Monday night, I developed a fever, and I knew 100% I had contracted it.

That was probably the scariest moment. I started to freak out a little bit. My mind went to all the people I have taken care of on ventilators and dialysis — and to the people who haven’t survived. That was a tough space to be in.

So the first thing I did was try to dive into the data and reassure myself. I looked up the numbers on my age group. Less than 5% of people my age get hospitalized and 99.8% of people my age survive. That comforted me some, but I can’t say the anxiety level is totally gone.

I went to a clinic Tuesday morning and got tested, and I found out for sure I had it on Tuesday afternoon. I told my wife I thought I had it when I first started feeling bad. After I knew for certain, she, of course, was kind of stunned. But she kind of pivoted to support and optimism pretty quickly, and after we got the confirmed test she reached out to all of our friends and told them.

Since then, I have been inundated with food and drink and everything you can imagine. If you need any Saltines or Gatorade or chicken soup, I think I have the market cornered on that right now. Since my wife and family left, there have been a lot of opportunities that show how great our community is right now. I haven’t gone to the grocery store since my wife left, and that’s been six weeks.

NIGHT SWEATS, CHILLS AND DEEP FATIGUE

I am kind of relieved to have gotten through the last couple of days of illness. Usually, the first couple of days are a prognostic for how the rest of the illness is going to go.

I had a lot of fever the first 48 hours, but nothing over 102. I had a little tightness in my chest, but not anything real painful. It hurts to move my eyeballs — that’s a weird symptom —particularly left and right. I don’t have an explanation for that. I had a rash. A lot of malaise and fatigue. At night, I’ve had sweats and chills. But they have not been nearly as bad as the way [CNN journalist] Chris Cuomo made his sound.

I am hoping and praying I won’t see the next phase of the disease. Most people don’t feel the worst affects until the second week. That’s what I am walking into.

I also have never been in a house by myself for four days. I’ve been alone six weeks, but I had work and interactions with other humans. Now, I am using House Party with my family. My teenage daughters never called me before the pandemic, and now they do every couple of days. I also had a conversation with mom through a closed garage window. She dropped off some tea cakes, which are a family recipe. I remember my great grandmother making those for us. It was good to see her.

BACK OPEN FOR BUSINESS?

I feel like it’s time to reopen, but it has to be done carefully and methodically.

If everyone floods bars and churches and movie theaters, then we’ll be in trouble again. We have to find a way to minimize risk and to live with this virus in our society.

We can’t stay indoors forever and the virus isn’t going away anytime soon. Of course, it makes me very nervous, particularly for my parents, who, honestly, have not been the best at risk reduction during the past month.

I worry that they and others will see any reopening as a pass to go back to pre-COVID life. If that happens, we could be right back where we started.

This story as told to reporter Jessica Bliss. Reach her at 615-2598253 and jbliss@tennessean.com.