Thursday, March 28, 2024

COVID-19 sent 2 women to local hospitals; neither wants to repeat the experience

WACO, TX – COVID-19 sent Bonnie Sullivan and Brittney Littrell to local hospitals this fall and both say the virus should be taken seriously.

Sullivan says her symptoms worsened quickly.

“I was rushed to the hospital on Thanksgiving Day,” she said.

“It was pretty scary how it attacked my lungs,” says Sullivan.

Sullivan spent nine days in the hospital, but wasn’t put on a ventilator.

“I was on an oxygen machine then and now, even though I’m negative, I still need oxygen,” she said.

“My lungs are still so weak,” she said.

Littrell did end up on a ventilator.

She, too, was taken to the hospital after developing breathing difficulties.

“I didn’t have time to handle it or explain it to my son,” Littrell said.

“I honestly don’t remember a lot,” she says.

“I remember they told me when they intubated me, they weren’t sure I was going to make it,” she said.

“They told my mom and dad to prepare for the worst.”

After a week on a ventilator, however, Littrell’s condition improved.

“I am extremely lucky,” says Littrell.

“I am 33 years old and I don’t have any other preexisting health conditions,” she said.

“This can happen to anyone.”

Littrell says she hopes others will learn from her story, so that they don’t have to go through what she did.

“I think people need to take it more seriously than they are.”

The numbers suggest not everyone in McLennan County is.

The Waco-McLennan County Health District reported 182 new confirmed cases of the virus Tuesday, nearly 50 of them involving residents in their 30s.

A record 125 patients were hospitalized, 20 of them on ventilators.

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