Retired NYPD Officer Released from Hospital After 61-Day COVID Stay
Retired officer Anthony Greco of the New York Police Department expressed his gratitude for the doctors and nurses who aided him through his 61-day bout with coronavirus.
Greco and his wife, Liz, were interviewed Tuesday on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends First” and revealed some of the difficulties both faced after Greco was hospitalized for treatment of COVID-19.
His wife and children could not visit him while he was treated, per the Mount Sinai Hospital’s coronavirus regulations at the time. Greco said that not seeing his family for so long was the most difficult obstacle he faced and that the day of his release was “very emotional.”
“I hadn’t seen my wife or my children other than once from a window, and it was the hardest part of the whole thing,” he said.
Greco’s family did what they could to adapt to the climate of restrictive hospital visitor policies and resorted to communicating by phone.
“It was torture. Not being able to go in there and help him, you know, and we did everything we could to just be on the phone with him as much as we could,” Liz Greco said. “Once we started FaceTiming, like, that’s all we did. … Otherwise, it was complete mental torture.”
As of July 15, Mount Sinai welcomes visitors who comply with its updated policy, which requires them “to be screened for symptoms of COVID-19” and to wear a mask and permits only one visitor per patient at a time.
Also included in the interview was one of Greco’s doctors at Mount Sinai South Nassau, Dr. Frank Coletta, who shed light on some of the details of the retired officer’s journey to recovery. Coletta said Greco arrived with “respiratory failure.”
“His oxygen levels were so low, we didn’t think he was gonna make it,” the doctor said.
He was transferred to Mount Sinai’s Manhattan hospital for “special therapy,” but things took a turn for the better and he was no longer dependent on a ventilator.
Unfortunately, when Greco was transferred back to South Nassau, he became “sick again with a terrible infection around his right lung, which required a surgery,” therefore requiring another ventilator for his rehabilitation.
Liz Greco said the family “prayed every night” that her husband was in the hospital.
“It’s a true miracle,” she said of his recovery. “We’re so blessed and grateful, and we thank God for every day.”
Since his release in May, he still faces obstacles in his recovery to this day.
“I still have some issues,” Anthony Greco said. “I need surgery on my left arm, which I have some pinched nerves in my neck now, so my left arm doesn’t work right. I have an issue with a finger on my right hand.
“I’m still having some chest pains every once and a while from my surgery in which they removed part of my lung. And I’m still working on my stamina and walking.”
He was given a chance to share his gratitude to Coletta and said, “I can’t thank him enough for everything he did, and everything all the other doctors and nurses did at these hospitals. It was — they kept me alive.
“I don’t know what would have happened had it not been for them. I wouldn’t be here.”
Thanks to President Donald Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed,” the race to develop a cure may produce results quickly enough to prevent others from experiencing the hardships Greco and his family faced in his fight against the virus.
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