‘Miracle’ COVID patient returns home
Outlook was grim at times during 61 days in hospital
George Banks spent 61 days in the hospital fighting for his life after contracting the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
On Friday, June 12, the corrections sergeant and volunteer firefighter was welcomed home by his family, fellow first responders, law enforcement, friends and others. It was a show of support that brought him to tears, said his wife, Tara Banks.
“Everyone just came out for him,” Tara said by phone Tuesday.
She said her husband’s fellow firefighters from the Port Ewen Fire Department also supported her while he was hospitalized. Members of the department brought her family meals and groceries, or just sat with her on her porch to talk, she said. One even sold bracelets to raise money to help the family pay its bills.
Tara said she told her husband she had the best backup while he was away.
And even though George is home now, he still has a long road ahead to recover from the virus, and the family has some fear that he could become sick again, Tara said. She said her husband lost about 60 pounds while he was in the hospital, as well as most of his muscle.
She said George, who is 45, is going through phys
ical therapy and working to get better. And though he wants to return to work at the Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Washington County next month, Tara said she doesn’t think he will be ready for that so soon.
“He’s doing better,” Tara said. “He’s just very weak.”
She said her husband was able to come home without needing oxygen, which many people were surprised about. She also said staff members at HealthAlliance Hospital’s Broadway Campus in Kingston told her George’s case was the worst they had seen. It was so bad, she said, that she was told to “prepare for the worst” and make arrangements in case her husband didn’t recover.
Even a doctor at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, where George was transferred to from the Kingston hospital, told him he should be dead, Tara said.
“He’s our miracle,” she said of her husband.
George Banks first became sick on April 5, his wife said. She said she was able to care for him for a week, but on Easter Sunday, she told him it was time for him to go to the hospital.
“He fought us,” Tara said. “He did not want to go.”
She said he had watched the news and was afraid that if he went to the hospital, he would die. But one of their daughters and George’s assistant fire chief convinced him it was time, Tara said.
Tara Banks, a nurse for 25 years, said when her husband was ready, she drove him to the hospital in Kingston.
“I had to leave him at the hospital doorstep,” she said. “You can’t even go in with him.” She said her husband was put on a ventilator at the hospital and the staff there provided him with excellent care.
On May 1, George was transferred to Westchester Medical Center because the ventilator was not enough and his body was retaining carbon dioxide that could lead to brain damage and organ failure, Tara said. She said he had to be put on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, machine, which pumps and oxygenates a patient’s blood outside the body to allow the heart and lungs to rest.
“They knew if he stayed [at the Kingston facility], he wasn’t going to survive,” Tara said. “He needed the ECMO because his body couldn’t get rid of the carbon dioxide.”
Ultimately, George was moved from the intensive care unit at Westchester Medical Center to a rehabilitation floor at the hospital on June 2, Tara said, and he underwent some rehabilitation before being released.
When George came home, Tara said, she “was just so overjoyed, but still, being a nurse, just completely scared to death.”
“I was ready for him to come home, but ... I have no idea what to expect because people relapse,” she said. “We don’t know what the long-term effect is.”
Tara said she had some nightmares while George was in the hospital, and she has had more since he has been home. Tara said George told her that the first night he was home, she slapped his chest and said his name because she didn’t feel his heartbeat and thought he was dead.
The couple has been together since they were 13 years old, and they now have three children, George Jr., Kathleen, and Olivia, and two grandchildren, Evan and Logan, Tara said.
She said her husband is her best friend and to see him when he was sick “crushed” his family. They were not allowed to visit George the entire time he was hospitalized except for a quick visit when he was finally in physical therapy, Tara said.
“When it first happened, he had a headache, fever and just body pain,” Tara said of her husband’s initial COVID-19 symptoms. “And then, the next morning, it was like completely flu.” She said he had diarrhea, a fever, a headache, severe body pain and was vomiting.
He told her the pain was the worst he had ever experienced, even more than when he accidentally shot himself in the arm while hunting a few years ago when his gun malfunctioned, Tara said. She said her husband told her that, at one point, it felt like someone had pliers and was pulling his toes.
A day or two after George became ill, one of the couple’s daughters also became sick with the virus, Tara said. The daughter had a fever, a bit of a headache, a cough and body aches, but she recovered within five days, Tara said.
Tara said that with so much still unknown about the virus, the public should not let their guard down, wear masks, wash their hands and maintain social distance.
During an online briefing Tuesday, Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan said George Banks defied the odds in recovering.
“On behalf of all the residents of the county, George, we’re really glad that you hung on and fought,” Ryan said. “And we appreciate you not just for that, but for being the kind of person that if you weren’t sick, you’d be out there with your fellow first responders, taking care of others.”
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