COVID-19 patient discusses road to recovery

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - While hundreds of thousands of people have died, many more have recovered from COVID-19. The road to recovery is not always easy.

That’s something Boyd Holt can attest too.

“It was terrible. I mean, I really thought I was going to die 'cause I knew that I was at the end," he said.

He was diagnosed with COVID-19 earlier this summer and later hospitalized as the virus lead to other complications.

Boyd Holt was in isolation after testing positive for COVID-19 when he noticed things got worse.

“One of my friends came in and says you have to go, you have to go, and I said ‘no, I’m fine, I’m fine.’ And then the next thing I knew I was in the room with Dr. Connelly. I probably wasn’t fine.”

While he can laugh about it now, Boyd was in bad shape.

“You can just see the vast extent of the damage there,” explained Dr. Tim Connelly.

When he finally showed up to Memorial Health’s Emergency Room, he wasn’t only battling COVID-19, but blood clots and a super infection.

“It’s likely he had COVID for about a week- week and a half- two weeks and then he started getting the bacterial super infection and when you have those two infections then you really get hyper-coagulable so he probably got the blood clots pretty quickly after that,” said Dr. Tim Connelly, Primary Care Physician at Memorial Health. “It’s kind of like a snowball rolling down a hill. He was a pretty big snowball when he hit the ER.”

Boyd says his symptoms started as exhaustion and a cough, but later became extreme breathing difficulty which is evident in his scans.

“I knew that I was going to die because I had very little capacity to breath and I knew I was going to die, but I have a good doctor.”

He credits his life and now recovery to Dr. Connelly and his team. They got Boyd on antibiotics, blood thinners and also treated him with remdesivir. While he admits his road to healing is slow as he remains exhausted and on oxygen, he’s grateful to be alive and wants others to learn from his experience.

“He represents somebody that could be anybody out there and nobody is above this and nobody, nobody is above having severe disease," said Dr. Connelly.

“It’s everybody’s responsibility and they should take advantage and get masks and make sure that they are social distancing," said Boyd. "Just make sure that they are doing the right thing, cause if you don’t you could be the next person.”

Boyd also encourages others to reach out to the hospital because he’s proof, they are heroes in the fight against COVID.

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