‘David, you are free now.’ How coronavirus changed the world for one SC family
When Regina Wright first arrived at her home after 55 days in hospital care, she sat on the front porch, enjoying the warmth of the spring day and reflecting on how fortunate she had been.
Wright had survived the novel coronavirus, a highly infectious disease that, since early March, has swept across Clarendon County and South Carolina with a lethal fury.
But as she rocked on the porch this past week, the Manning resident missed having her father beside her, smiling and reassuring her as he always did.
Both she and her father, David Wright, had been in the hospital together, infected with COVID 19. They were so sick that each spent weeks on ventilators at a Florence hospital as doctors worked to save them.
Unlike his daughter, David Wright, 67, didn’t make it. He died this month after 40 days in the hospital, leaving the family wondering how Regina could survive extraordinary circumstances and David could not.
“The doctor said ‘you are the first COVID 19 patient on this floor to make it; everybody else came off in a body bag,’ ‘’ a teary Regina Wright said this past week. “But this is bittersweet because my dad is not here anymore.’’
The Wrights’ struggle with coronavirus is part of a larger story that is playing out across the country this spring, highlighting how COVID 19 is changing families forever.
Since it was first documented in South Carolina, the disease has infected nearly 10,000 people and killed more than 400, leaving a string of grieving loved ones asking why it all happened. As of late last week, tiny Clarendon County ranked third in the state in the number of people killed by the coronavirus.
Statewide, a majority of those infected have recovered, but not many have gotten better after spending as much time in the hospital as Regina Wright, at least not in eastern South Carolina, health care officials said. And not many cases have involved multiple family members in intensive care at the same time.
Lillian Wright, Regina’s mother, said the impact the coronavirus has had on her family has been profound. In the quiet of her bedroom, away from her children and grandchildren, she thinks about how a disease discovered on the other side of the world has changed her family in a small South Carolina town.
“I lay down at night sometimes and I am like ‘Wow, this really happened,’ ‘’ Lillian Wright said. “A disease that I heard about only from a distance ended up being in my home. And I ended up with two loved ones on ventilators.’’
Normal life shattered
Before both David and Regina Wright were hospitalized, the family was enjoying life in a small town and working to make ends meet.
When he wasn’t fishing with his daughter, Wendy, or his grandchildren, David Wright busied himself with his favorite pastime: cooking.
Wright, a local baseball legend who played and coached in the Manning area for decades, was teaching family members how to make a barbecue sauce he had perfected for the many pig pickings the Wrights hosted.
Mike, his son, said David Wright was particular about using just the right ingredients.
“His was kind of spicy but it used mustard, not too much; it was like Carolina style sauce,’’ Mike Wright said.
Well known around Manning for his hog cooking skills, David Wright had recently launched a new hobby. The retired paper company worker was making cakes from the family home. The sweet cakes provided a distinct contrast to the salty barbecue sauce he developed.
“He was baking everybody cakes,’’ Lillian Wright said. “He made a mean jelly cake. ‘’
“He became a baker in his last days.’’
Regina, a former 911 dispatcher who lives with her parents, was spending time this spring with her mother, talking about family and helping around the house. She always enjoyed the meals her father cooked.
On many days, most of the Wrights’ 10 grandchildren would be at the house, carousing with each other in the big yard and talking to David and Lillian. One was even working with David and Mike to learn the family’s barbecue secrets.
“Mama and Daddy’s house has been the house to come to, to eat and to play,’’ Regina Wright said.
Then one day in March, Regina began to feel bad.
At first, she figured it was just allergies during a time of year when the pollen in South Carolina is thick and pervasive. But when her coughing worsened and she developed a nearly 102-degree temperature, she sought attention at the Manning hospital on March 24.
“I was coughing so bad I could not hold down food,’’ she said. “I said ‘This is getting strange.’. Then my sister came home and took my temperature. That’s when I said ‘I’ve got to get out of here’ ‘’ to the hospital.
Regina said she figured the doctors at the hospital would examine her, give her some medicine and send her home. But they realized the signs of COVID 19, tested her and put her in the hospital.
After that, doctors told Regina it might be wise to put her on a ventilator because her breathing was so labored. She reluctantly agreed.
“I said ‘a ventilator? Oh my God, I didn’t know it would be this serious,’ ‘’ Regina Wright said. “They said ‘We might have to transfer you to the hospital in Florence.’ I was not ready. I called my mom. I was freaking out.’’
That frightened David Wright, a tough man who didn’t easily show fear. He couldn’t believe his healthy, 44-year-old daughter had a serious enough illness that she had to be hospitalized in Florence, a 45 minute drive from their Manning home.
David Wright even broke down and cried.
“It was scary, with nobody knowing what was going on and the doctors not knowing how to treat it,’’ said Mike Wright, Regina’s brother. “He was really upset. He was really worried about my sister.’’
Stunned family
Four days later, as Regina lay in the hospital on a ventilator, her father began to feel bad.
Dizzy and generally out of sorts, he went to an urgent care facility, then the hospital emergency room in Manning. Doctors, aware that Clarendon County was a hot spot for COVID 19, quickly sent him to the larger McLeod Regional hospital in Florence for observation and treatment, family members said.
In the Florence hospital, both David and Regina Wright wound up just a few rooms apart. The doctors had put each on ventilators because they were starved for oxygen and in danger of dying.
Regina remembers nothing after doctors hooked her to the breathing machine until she awoke more than two weeks later. She had begun to improve, and doctors were taking her off the ventilator. But her recovery would take time.
The effects of being immobile for weeks had affected other parts of her body. She would have to take dialysis because her kidneys had been damaged, as well as physical therapy to help her walk.
“I could not move my legs, I could not move my arms,’’ Regina Wright said. “The only thing I could move was my fingers and toes. Not only had I woken up in a strange place, but I was not able to make my body function.’’
Still, the signs were good that she would recover. Once back in her room, she learned that her dad had also begun to get better, and was being taken off his ventilator.
The hospital staff let David and Regina talk by cell phone. It’s a conversation that inspired her to fight hard. David Wright told his daughter not to be discouraged but to focus on getting better, she said.
Then one day, she was told by a nurse to look through the glass of her hospital room door. The curtain had been pulled back, and outside in the hallway was her dad, smiling.
“I said ‘Hey daddy, I love you daddy,’ ‘’ she said. “He said ‘I love you too daughter.’ It turns out I was the last one of us in the family that he was able to talk to.’’
After that brief meeting, David Wright began to go downhill and he was again hooked to the breathing machine in an attempt to fight off the coronavirus. He wasn’t getting enough oxygen, Regina Wright said.
He died May 6 after a total of 29 days on a ventilator. Doctors said he would never improve and could not survive on his own without the ventilator. The family made the painful decision to remove him from the ventilator.
The Wrights were not able to be with David when he died because the hospital didn’t want to risk others getting COVID 19. But many family members saw him for a final time that day through a teleconference hookup.
“I saw him take his last breath,’’ said Lillian Wright, who had been married to David for 42 years. “When he took his last breath, I started singing ‘David, you are free now.’ ‘’
“Truly he was free. He was not suffering anymore.’’
Miracle recovery
Regina Wright, also had been at risk of death, but somehow, she survived. She and her mother, both strong in their Christian faith, call it a miracle from God.
Regina became one of the first people at McLeod Regional Medical Center in Florence to spend such a long period in the hospital with COVID 19 and get better.
“There are a lot of people who are still in the hospital and God willing they will get better,’’ said Ramesh Bharadwaj, an infectious disease doctor who treated the Wrights. “But she is one of the first cases we’ve had with a protracted illness who has made it through.’’
Bharadwaj said Regina Wright likely survived because she was in her 40s, in relatively good shape. In contrast, her 67-year-old father had high blood pressure and an underlying breathing disorder when hospitalized with the virus.
Regina Wright’s will to live also helped.
“She had a strong spirit, she was a fighter,’’ Bharadwaj said. “She had it in her mind she was going to get better and she just kept improving. That made a huge difference.’’
Wright was discharged from McLeod in late April, but remained in a rehabilitation hospital in Florence until Monday, when she was finally released from hospital care. She received good news Friday. Doctors said she no longer needed dialysis..
How the Wrights came to contract the coronavirus remains a mystery.
Perhaps Regina got it at one of several funerals she attended that attracted legions of people in early March.
Among those funerals was a gathering for her uncle who died that month. No one knew at the time to stay out of crowds, as state and federal health officials would advise later that month, she and her mother said.
Or maybe David got it somewhere else and passed it to Regina. No one really knows.
Memories and determination
One thing the Wrights know for sure is the family has a gaping hole in it that can never be filled again.
David Wright was a man who provided for his kids, taught them to respect others and always had an encouraging word, family members said.
Mike Wright, 45, recalled the time his father stood up for him during a baseball game between a Manning men’s team and a club from a nearby community. Mike, then 13, had been drafted to umpire on the infield because the regular umpire was unavailable. When a rival player threatened the younger Wright after a questionable call, David Wright pointedly told the man not to bother his son.
“He had our back, he took care of his family,’’ Mike Wright said. “He was firm but fair. He was old school.’
Mike Wright, his sisters Regina and Wendy, and their mother, Lillian, are now trying to figure out daily life without the family patriarch to advise them.
This past week, the city of Manning rallied around the Wrights, providing a police escort to her house after Regina left the hospital’s rehabilitation center. Mayor Julia Nelson shot video of the return home.
As the car carrying Regina pulled into the driveway, she saw that the house had been adorned with “Welcome Back’’ balloons.
Some family members cheered.
Others wept.
With the use of a walker, Regina got out of the car and slowly made her way to the porch, where she sat in a rocking chair. Wearing a mask for protection, she spoke to her family, saying how glad she was to be home.
“The doctors thought I was going to die,’’ she told her family in the video shot by Nelson. “They couldn’t figure why I was still alive. And I would tell him it’s God.’’
Mayor Nelson said the Wright story is sad but inspirational.
“The fact that she had endured 55 days of fighting COVID and rehabilitation is a miracle in itself,’’ Nelson said.
Now, the Wrights are placing their faith in God, comforted by their belief that David Wright is in heaven and knowing that Regina is on the road to recovery.
““This has been a tough time for us,’’ Mike Wright said. “I’ve been trying to deal with it through prayer and my faith in God.’’
This story was originally published May 24, 2020 at 5:49 AM.
