Woman in ICU for 10 days says husband’s parking lot routine kept her going
By Claire Metz
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PORT ORANGE, Florida (WESH) — A Port Orange woman is back home after 10 days in ICU fighting COVID-19.
“It is the most terrifying thing you will ever experience in your life, just laying there not being able to take a breath,” Donna Crane said.
“I could see the fear in her face and I said all right put your shoes on we’re going,” Gary Crane.
Donna and Gary Crane say days after Donna contracted COVID-19 in mid-August, the virus made her so ill she had to be hospitalized for acute respiratory failure.
“That was the last I saw of her for 10 days,” Gary recalled.
“I couldn’t see him and that was the hardest part is not being able to have somebody there,” Donna said.
As Donna lay in ICU, she said the staff was amazing, caring for her but there were frightening moments.
“You would lay there in bed at night and you would hear code after code after code being called and you just wonder, what’s going to happen,” Donna said.
To ease her fears, to show Donna she was not alone, Gary, a lieutenant with Marion County Fire showed up every morning in the hospital parking lot before he went to work, holding big block letters that say, “I love you. Every day, for 10 days.”
“I just wanted her to know that because I know she was going to be scared and I couldn’t be there with her, and I just wanted her to know that I’m there,” he said.
“The nurses would sit me up in the bed … let me look out the window, let me see he was there at 8 a.m. and I knew, ‘OK, we’re going to, we’re going to do this,'” she said.
Though she’s out of the hospital, Donna is aware the road to complete recovery will be a long one. She’s just grateful she survived because the couple has much to look forward to.
“I just found out, my daughter is expecting. We’re going to be grandparents, and that went through my mind. I want to hold my baby,” she said.
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