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A Washington wildland firefighter spent five weeks on a ventilator after contracting COVID-19 while battling a Colorado wildfire.
Over the summer, Jason Phillips had been around the country fighting wildfires as a U.S. Forest Service firefighter, KUSA-TV reports. He arrived in Fort Collins on Aug. 10 to help contain the Cameron Peak Fire, Colorado's largest wildfire ever.
Phillips began feeling ill near the end of an Aug. 25 shift.
“By that afternoon, my life was turned upside down," he told KUSA. "I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t keep (anything) down. My whole entire body was shaking so bad, I couldn’t hold a pencil to write my own name."
Phillips tested negative for COVID-19 during a trip to the emergency room. But when his symptoms didn't let up, he returned to the hospital, and a second test came out positive.
After that test, Phillips was admitted to the hospital and placed in the intensive care unit.
“The morning of the 26th was when I got told, ‘We’d put you on a ventilator, and you have a 50-50 chance of surviving.’ And I told him, 'Well, what if I don’t have the ventilator whatsoever?' He said you’ll be dead by the morning,” he told KUSA.
Phillips was on an ICU ventilator and in a coma for 39 days until he tested negative for the virus twice. Since he's been off the ventilator, he's been unable to walk and needs to the help of supplemental oxygen.
Doctors have told Phillips that it could take up to a year before he's fully recovered from contracting COVID-19. Despite months of treatment ahead, he still plans to battle wildfires in 2021.
“It rearranges who you are as a person," Phillips told KUSA. "You take what you had in the past, what you have now, and a lot of that stuff just doesn’t matter.”
A GoFundMe campaign has been started to help Phillips with his hospital bills.
