JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The family of a man hospitalized at Baptist South with COVID-19 is asking for help finding an ECMO machine.
Tuesday was the eighteenth day 67-year-old David Wilkinson spent in the hospital. He tested positive for COVID on July 24, was admitted to the hospital July 31, and was put on a ventilator on Aug. 12.
His wife, 63-year-old Lucia, tested positive a few days after David and was in the hospital for eight days. She's home now on a ventilator.
"He's critical at this point," David and Lucia's daughter, Davina Christy, said. "We need a miracle."
Christy and her sister, Devin Nieman, have been searching for an ECMO machine to help their dad because local hospitals don't have any available.
An ECMO is life support that replaces the function of the heart and lungs. Christy and Nieman have reached out to hospitals from Florida to North Carolina to Tennessee with no luck.
“He’s hanging on. They said he’s fighting. He’s kind of staying the same. He’s not getting progressively worse now that he’s on the vent,” Christy said.
“We’re fighting hard," Nieman said. "We’ve been in search for an ECMO machine that he would potentially need. Unfortunately, there are qualifications that you need to go on the ECMO machine and we aren’t 100 percent sure if he meets those qualifications," Nieman said.
They said their parents planned to get vaccinated the week David tested positive.
"We had talked about it with them and they were going to go the week my dad was diagnosed positive," Christy said. "He had a little scratchy throat and I was worried and I was like, 'just go get tested and then get a negative test then get the vaccine just in case.' He was like, ‘I’m not sick,’ but he did go get tested and it was positive and then he started getting sick."
They said they never predicted they'd be where they are today.
"A couple of weeks ago, they were just in the mountains. They go to Cades cove, their favorite place. My dad is 67 but he's a young 67, still active. He does a lot of woodworking," Christy said. "He just did their entire screened-in back porch. It’s absolutely beautiful by himself and now here we are a few weeks later and he’s fighting for his life. It’s serious."
Christy and Nieman have a message to anyone listening.
"Take it serious. We thought we were protecting our parents and we were doing everything we could, but unfortunately, it's all over Jacksonville right now, so definitely take it serious," Nieman said. “If anybody sees this, if you know anybody that can help with help with anything, clinical trials, we’re willing to do anything for our father."
Baptist Health said in a statement,
Throughout the country and in our area, a very limited number of hospitals have extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machines. If an adult patient requires ECMO, Baptist Health will transfer the patient to the closest accepting hospital, provided they have capacity and feel the patient would be a good candidate for the treatment. If a local hospital does not accept the patient for treatment, we continue to search other hospitals outside the state of Florida.
Our hearts are with the patients and families fighting COVID-19, and we are working diligently day and night to provide excellent care and save lives.
Memorial Hospital's spokesperson and Ascension St. Vincent's said they don't have any ECMO machines. UF Health Jacksonville has two, but they're both in use. First Coast News hasn't heard back from Mayo Clinic at the time this article was published.