On Aug. 10, Scott Prichard fell asleep, or so it seemed to him. When he woke up, it was mid-September.
“I didn’t know I was in a coma,” he latered reciunted. “I woke up and didn’t know what time it was or what the date was. I thought I had just been in the hospital for a few days, and it had been a month and a half.”
The nightmare scenario that Prichard is still living began in late July, when he woke up one morning with a sore throat and stuffy nose. “I didn’t think twice about it,” he said. “It was allergy season. But then at work, I couldn’t stop sweating.”
Prichard got tested July 27, “to make sure it wasn’t COVID.” He wasn’t worried. After all, “everyone kept saying that people my age don’t have to worry too much.” Prichard is 30 years old with no underlying medical conditions. He said even when his test results came back positive, “I didn’t freak out about it. It surprised me that it was positive, but I wasn’t expecting what happened.”
The Sunday following his positive test, Prichard called 9-1-1, concerned about his fever, which had hit 103. “I had taken Tylenol, though, to reduce the fever, ” he said. “By the time the rescue squad arrived, my fever was gone.”
Two or three days later, Prichard found himself calling 9-1-1 again. “I was feeling short of breath,” he said. “When Chesterfield Fire and EMS got there, my oxygen level was at 82.” At that point, Prichard was admitted to St. Francis Hospital. “I was a little nervous,” he said, “because I don’t ever go to the hospital or to a doctor. I am perfectly healthy.” To this day, Prichard said, his team of medical professionals has “no idea why it affected me the way it did.”
“When I was at St. Francis,” Prichard said, “I was still texting my friends.” Recently, he went back to read some of those texts. “I told one of my friends I was starting to get scared because they might have to put me on the ventilator,” he said.
Prichard was admitted to St. Francis on August 5, went into a medically-induced coma five days later and was moved to St. Mary’s on Aug. 18. “They were afraid they might have to put him on an ECMO machine to help his organs function,” his mother, Ann Prichard, explained. Fortunately, despite the transfer to St. Mary’s, Prichard’s condition never warranted the ECMO.
Prichard remained at St. Mary’s until Oct. 12, when he was able to function without the ventilator and could be discharged to Sheltering Arms, which he left Oct. 29. “Once I was at Sheltering Arms, my personal goal, and what they wanted also for me, was to get me off supplemental oxygen,” he said. “I also wanted to be able to walk without a walker or wheelchair.” Prichard explained that while his doctors do not know whether a COVID-caused brain bleed or COVID-caused stroke led to complications for him, his left leg is still numb and he does not have full use of this right arm. In addition to suffering challenges with his limbs, Prichard added, “I lost 65 pounds, mostly muscle.”
Currently, Prichard is continuing his recovery at the Sheltering Arms outpatient facility, where he is expected to attend physical therapy appointments twice a week for 10 weeks. He will also engage in occupational therapy to help him with everyday tasks like showering, doing laundry, and putting dishes away.
Despite the challenges he has faced and those he knows lie ahead, Prichard said it feels good to be back home. Home is different these days, though. Prichard said he had lived alone before his diagnosis, but will be staying with his parents “for however long it takes to regain my independence.”
As for his career situation, “I mostly worked all the time. I was working 60 hours a week, staying out late working, but now I don’t know if I [will]be able to go back to work doing the same thing I was before,” he said. “It depends on whether my leg and arm get back to pre-COVID ability.”
Prichard has been a lead installer for Classic Granite and Marble, a small, family-owned business, for 8 years. While he is unsure of what role he will be able to play there in the future, Prichard is sure of one thing: “I will go back to the same company. [The people there] have done so much for me.” Classic even started a GoFundMe campaign to help Prichard cover his medical expenses. People interested in contributing can visit GoFundMe.com and search for “Scott Prichard Covid Medical Assistance.”
In addition to being grateful for the support of his employer, Prichard said the many people who prayed for him played a hand in his recovery. “There were times,” his mother said, “when we did not think he [would]make it. It was very trying. I would call the hospital three times a day—morning, afternoon and in the evening before bed, trying to get updates. The main thing I was told was, ‘You have a very sick young man.’ They couldn’t tell me much else.”
Despite a bleak outlook, Prichard rallied. “He was even fighting in his dreams,” his mother said.
Prichard confirmed, “When I was in the coma, I had a dream that I was fighting a battle in a post-apocalyptic world.” Prichard didn’t think much about the dream until he related it to a speech therapist at Sheltering Arms. “I told her about it, and she said, ‘You were fighting a battle,’ I was fighting a battle for my life.”
Though it took 12 weeks, Prichard won. He woke up. He went home. “I survived COVID,” he said. “I will never forget it. It has affected me so badly.”
Prichard wants to tell people to “take it more seriously. It’s not something to shrug off, [as]I did. I never thought I would get it to the extent that I did.” Prichard said that prior to falling ill, he had not spent time in big groups or “hanging out. I just went to work and went home. I was young and healthy with no underlying conditions. That right there, they say, means you have a better shot of not getting it [COVID] that bad, but I am proof you still can.”
Now that he is on the road to recovery, Prichard said he has learned two lessons from his experience: “Don’t take life for granted. You are not promised tomorrow.”
