After months with COVID-19, woman leaves hospital after ‘unbelievable’ recovery
After battling the disease at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Isabel Pupo beat COVID-19.
Five months. That’s how long Isabel Pupo was in the hospital being treated for COVID-19 and pneumonia.
The Miami Beach woman, 55, was admitted to Mount Sinai Medical Center in July, and released back in November, CBS4 reported.
Mount Sinai confirmed the long stay and unbelievable recovery to the Miami Herald on
Monday.
At many points during her hospitalization, doctors doubted Pupo would make it. Multiple times, her oxygen levels were considered “unlivable.”
The patient’s pulmonologist, Dr. Ari Ciment, told the Herald on Monday that Pupo’s oxygen saturation levels were 65% for two days — way below normal.
Normally, a person’s oxygen levels, as measured by the oxygen saturation of his or her blood, range from 95 to 100%. Levels below 90 are a major cause for concern.
Ciment is overheard in CBS4 footage of her smiling in bed saying that he is so “proud of
her,” and calling her recovery “unbelievable.”
“I actually told the family on numerous occasions, unfortunately, that she was going to pass away and we are going to have to stop [treatment],” Dr. Steven DeBeer, a cardiothoracic surgeon, told the TV station.
ON LUNG MACHINE
Due to her being overweight with a high BMI (body mass index,) Pupo was put on an ECMO, which stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. The artificial lung machine did the breathing for 67 days while she lay in a medically induced coma.
After her extended hospitalization, Pupo was transferred to a rehabilitation facility in Hollywood
for the next three months. The Cuban native is back home with her family, she told the Miami Herald on Monday.
She recounted how she thought she contracted the coronavirus.
“I arrived at home from my job as a cashier at a supermarket over the summer feeling terrible, and I assume I got it there,” said the mother of two, who is still getting therapy on her left hand.
Pupo, who has yet to return to work, thanked all the doctors, and attributed her amazing comeback to her faith and good genes.
“I am a strong woman,” she said Monday. “Look, before this, I had never gotten sick. But this was, Wow. I thought it was going to kill me. It’s proof that God exists and COVID is not a game.”
George Washington Carver High School basketball team had built a huge early lead in their playoff game in New Orleans on Saturday when John Shallerhorn tried to walk into the gym. But Shallerhorn, 35, wasn't wearing a mask, so a staffer blocked his way, police said.
When Shallerhorn punched the staffer, Tulane University police officer Martinus Mitchum, who was working security for the team, rushed to help. That's when Shallerhorn pulled a gun, police said, and fatally shot Mitchum, 38, in the chest, sending players and fans scurrying for safety.
Shallerhorn, who was quickly arrested and charged with multiple felonies including murder of a police officer, had also robbed someone outside the game before coming inside, according to a criminal complaint reviewed by nola.com.
He confessed to the killing, police said, and was ordered held without bail. It's not clear if he has an attorney.
The killing stunned New Orleans police and officials and students at Tulane and Carver High, with Mitchum's colleagues, friends and family remembering him as a hero.
“I feel like Mitch saved lives last night because we don't know what that gentleman really was coming in there to do,” Jason BerThe trand, a friend, told WJTV. “There was kids in there, families in there. What could you be going into a high basketball with a gun?”
The fatal shooting is the latest deadly incident over mask mandates meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus, including several that have targeted police and guards trying to enforce the policies. Last May, a Family Dollar security guard in Michigan was killed after ordering customers to mask up, and in August, a Pennsylvania man was charged with firing an AK-47 at police after arguing about a mask policy at a cigar shop.
Mitchum, a Detroit native who contemplated becoming a preacher before going into law enforcement, made a deep impact at the high schools where he worked after graduating from police academy in Slidell, La., nola.com reported.
At L.B. Landry High School, where he went by “Mitch,” he became something of a manager and mentor for the basketball team, booking hotels and food and traveling with the squad as it won a state championship. “We probably wouldn't have won those championships we have in basketball if wasn't for Mitch,” Tarance Davis, the school's former athletic director, told nola.com.
In recent years, Mitchum, who also worked as a reserve constable for the city courts, adopted a similar position with the Carver team. He was a “fixture” at the team’s games, where he frequently worked security, school officials said.
On Saturday, he was on duty in uniform outside the school's home gym in New Orlean's Desire neighborhood as the Carver Rams hosted Warren Easton High School in the first round of the playoffs.
As the teams played, Shallerhorn walked up to an unidentified man in the parking lot, flashed a gun and demanded his jewelry, according to court documents reviewed by nola.com. When he then tried to walk into the gym, he ran into a staffer checking fans’ temperatures at the door and making sure they had masks.
He punched the staffer in the face after refusing to put a mask on, nola.com reported, and then shot Mitchum when he came to help. Other deputies on the scene quickly arrested Shallerhorn, the New Orleans Police Department said in a statement.