Oklahoma man in ICU with COVID for 4 months needs double lung and heart transplant to survive - KXAN.com
Brian Karnes and wife Rebekah, who run a family medicine clinic, along with their five daughters, contracted COVID-19 in March.Rebekah Karnes said she and her husband, who is on a ventilator right now and has come close to dying during his fight with the virus, were not vaccinated when they contracted it.A week after the family contracted COVID-19, he was the one in the ICU.
“His lungs were failing, and oxygenation just wasn’t holding up,†Rebekah Karnes said.Brian Karnes had to go on a treatment called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).He had a wake-up moment in the hospital where he came back to consciousness, his wife said.Rebekah Karnes said COVID-19 wreaked havoc on his lungs, which no longer inflate on their own.
Brian Karnes runs a clinic in Norman, Oklahoma, which is where his wife works.“We’re in a hard spot,†Rebekah Karnes said.Dykes contracted COVID-19 in March and then, so did the rest of his family.