COVID-19 put her in a coma for a month. Now SC woman faces a difficult comeback
Samella Barr arrived at MUSC Florence Medical Center on June 29 “alert, but incoherent,” she said.
“I had people tell me I called them, telling them I was in the hospital and asking them to pray for me,” Barr recalled in February. “I did not know I did that. I can see the numbers in my phone, but I don’t remember calling them.”
Soon, Barr was placed on a ventilator to keep her lungs working as they fought off COVID-19. It was the last thing she would remember for the next month.
The radio station manager from Lake City was put into a coma that ended up lasting a month. She was in the hospital for more than two. Even now, she faces a long journey back to complete health.
In a year when thousands across South Carolina and the nation have been affected by the coronavirus, Barr’s illness is sadly not unique. But to Barr, her family, and the medical professionals who treated her, her long, slow road to recovery was nothing short of miraculous.
‘It hits so hard, it results in multiple organ failures’
“The week before, we had several people out” at the radio station where Barr worked. “I came in with a sore throat, they said ‘go home and get tested.’ While I was waiting on the results, I had shortness of breath, a sore throat, chills, I lost my sense of smell, I lost my appetite.”
When she went to the hospital, her condition quickly deteriorated. Within 48 hours of her admission with COVID symptoms, she had to be sedated into a coma and intubated, with a tube inserted to help her breath. She developed pneumonia and inflammation on her brain.
Her case was not uncommon. The Florence hospital had been slammed with COVID-19 cases during a summer surge, and Roberto Miranda, Barr’s primary care physician, knew she would be in danger.
“Most of the time, when it hits so hard, it results in multiple organ failures,” he said.
Nurse Savita Patel said it’s common to sedate patients in Barr’s situation, who need to be placed on a ventilator in order to keep getting air to their lungs.
“If they gag, the ventilator can’t work,” she said.
Patients are kept on a ventilator for a maximum of 14 days, Patel said. But after Barr was detached from the machine, it took longer for her to begin to regain consciousness.
LaChion Brown, another nurse at MUSC Florence, got in touch with Barr’s daughter to let her know what was happening to her mother. She even video-called so Brown could show her how her then-unconscious mother was doing.
A mother herself, Brown felt a personal connection with the family.
“She was 19, and I have a 17-year-old,” she said. “When we were done, I said, ‘do you need me to come pick you up?’ I didn’t know what I could do, but I wanted to do what I could.”
Once a patient does wake up, it’s difficult for nurses to communicate with a patient in Barr’s condition. Unable to speak, those patients can only communicate through nods of the head or even just blinking their eyes.
“We have to try to figure out, ‘Are you in pain? Are you hungry?’” Patel said.
When she woke up, she had a tracheotomy, a colostomy bag attached to her belly, and a feeding tube in her mouth.
‘I couldn’t quit’
She woke up with problems in her heart and lungs. Both feet had nerve damage. She needed assistance bathing and brushing her teeth.
Barr said she had to wait until a nurse came to change the TV in her hospital room, because her hand was too tired to operate the remote.
But it was calls from her daughters, ages 32 and 19, that helped keep her on focused on recovery.
“I knew I could just go to sleep and it would all be over,” Barr said. “If I die, it wouldn’t hurt.”
But “I remember looking at that phone and hearing them say ‘Mommy, we love you, keep fighting.’ And I thought I’ve got two kids that want me to hang in there ... I told them their whole life that you don’t quit. So I couldn’t quit.”
She had to wait for the incision in her throat — a tracheotomy — to slowly close so she could speak again. When the doctors brought her a voicebox that would allow her to speak again, Barr was overwhelmed by what she heard.
“I cried,” she said. “I hadn’t heard my voice for two months.”
Now, Barr jokes “It was God telling me I talked too much.”
When the nurses reunited with Barr at the hospital in February, it was the first time they had seen her since she was moved to a recovery unit. Brown and Patel were both amazed at how well she was doing. While she still has difficulty walking, Barr was alert and in good spirits. Most patients in the condition she was in are not so lucky.
“Usually, we just hear later that they’ve died,” Patel said.
Miranda said Barr’s recovery has been extraordinary.
“Besides medicine, I’m a man of faith,” Miranda said, “and this is like a miracle.”
The former patient praised the hard work of her caregivers.
“I thank God for the awesome team he placed with me,” she said.
Financially spent after COVID hospital stay
Barr went home at the beginning of September. Her daughter, a student at USC Beaufort, was able to come home to take care of her mother while still taking classes online. The older daughter lives in Maryland.
Back at home, Barr had to learn how to live again. She couldn’t shower, drive a car or even open a bottle of water. She still goes to rehab twice a week to strengthen her heart and lungs.
“Long-term fatigue is a part of the process,” Miranda said. “Her walking has really improved. She could barely move, and now she’s using her walker.”
On top of her physical recovery, Barr often feels stigmatized as a COVID survivor, thinking her condition makes people avoid her. Her prolonged absence and recovery also cost Barr her job as a manager at the radio station. It’s also left her financially spent. She lost her savings and this month will have to move out of her home, going to stay with family until she can get back on her feet.
In trying to get assistance, Barr has found that often “I’m either too young or too old,” she said.
“I’ve not gone totally without,” Barr said. “I lean on my daughters. They keep me going... I just want someone who reads this and is in the same shape I am to know it’s OK to ask for help.”
And to anyone who is still questioning how dangerous COVID-19 really is, she hopes her story can be a cautionary tale.
“Don’t take the small, simple things for granted,” she said. “Wear a mask. Stay 6 feet apart.”
Despite all the disease has done to her, Barr takes a certain amount of pride in her recovery. While others would try to cover the tracheotomy scar on her throat, Barr doesn’t bother.
“I wear mine proudly,” she said. “Look what I’ve been through.”
Family friend Ron Goodman is raising money to help Barr at 917-561-8326.
This story was originally published March 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
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