Officials at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital are sharing the story about saving a man’s life after both his lungs needed to be replaced due to a bad case of COVID.
Indiana native Tim Cornett came down to South Florida in a last-ditch effort to stay alive after being diagnosed with COVID in January 2020. Two months after the diagnosis, his lungs began to fail.
"They had no other option than just to take him off the ventilator and let nature take its course," said Dr. Juan C. Balgado.
The team at the Miami Transplant Institute accepted the challenge to keep this man alive. They said his lungs were so bad, he went through a rehab procedure before getting surgery. Four months went by, and six attempts were made to get a perfect match.
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Finally, the match was found.
“The combined effort of everybody, along with all that passion put together, is what is from the outside witness as a miracle,” Balgado said. “Because it's hard to envision isolated aspects of his care unless you put it all together to see what the final outcome is.”
An eight-hour surgery was met with challenges because of the inflammation caused by the virus. It was challenging, but not impossible for the team.
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“Seeing a person like this, walking out of the hospital on room (and) getting his life back. So, I think that in our professional lives, there's very little moments that will resemble that,” said Tiago N. Machuca, director of the lung center at MTI. “So for us, it essentially exemplifies why we do it.”
Cornett returned to his native Indiana with his family, which not includes a new grandson.
