North Texas Father Urges Others to Get Vaccinated After His Fight with COVID – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Within a few days, Joseph Martin switched from the health picture to another COVID-19 patient with pneumonia and gasped for his next breath.

“I was almost suffocating,” he recalls. “You did a great job keeping the oxygen flowing, but it was very traumatic. I had panic attacks. “

Martin began to feel sick after returning from Florida vacation.

He thought it was a cold and sore muscles. But it got worse quickly.

Martin was admitted to a hospital in Dallas and then to Medical City Plano, where doctors diagnosed him with COVID-19 and pneumonia.

“I had pneumonia, severe pneumonia, in both lungs. Both lungs were completely white on the X-ray, ”he said. “I got worse very quickly.”

Martin said he was hooked up to an ECMO machine that pumps blood from the patient’s body to an artificial lung that adds oxygen and removes carbon monoxide.

COVID-19 almost killed the 34-year-old father.

“I almost died, yes,” he said. “And I’m still recovering.”

He is recovering and now regrets not having received the COVID-19 vaccine at all.

Martin says he works out six days a week, eats healthy, and leads a healthy lifestyle.

“I felt like my immune system was very strong,” said Martin. “And one more thing, at my age I probably just hesitated, just went through life. It didn’t seem to have a priority. “

He admits he made a mistake.

“I should definitely have done that [get vaccinated] to protect me and my daughter too, because she is not yet 12 years old and cannot get it, ”he said.

Perla Sanchez Perez is a nurse in the intensive care unit / Covid-19 at Parkland Hospital. She was the first employee to be vaccinated against the virus late last year.

Parkland Hospital reports it is treating 69 COVID-19 patients today, up from seven patients two weeks ago.

That’s a jump of more than 800%.

“It’s the 30- and 40-year-olds who get through,” she said.

At least 70% are Hispanic and almost every COVID patient is unvaccinated.

“As we prepare to intubate her, you can see the fear in her eyes,” she said. “They grab your hand and say, ‘Can you please vaccinate me?’ Well, unfortunately it is too late at this point. “

There is a GoFundMe program that is helping Martin, who is a single father and hairdresser based in Dallas.

He has lost 25 pounds since battling coronavirus and is still too weak to return to work.

“I just want to thank everyone, all the doctors and nurses,” he said.

He urges everyone who can be vaccinated not to wait.

“For me, to get this virus and get worse to this point, especially at my age, you wouldn’t believe it was going to happen. But it worked perfectly. “

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