Most coronavirus patients who go on ventilators won't survive. But those who do can face long-term trauma.
For the sickest COVID-19 patients, getting on a ventilator to help them breathe can be a life-saving process
Some patients who survive can experience longer-term physical complications including from organ failure that came up while the patient was on a ventilator, delirium, and, in COVID-19, the potential for long-term lung damage.
Often, patients find the lasting mental-health toll from facing death and feeling helpless can be the most bothersome and difficult-to-treat consequence.
When Rebecca Trahan heard New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo mention ventilators as the state was looking to increase its supply, she started to panic.
Trahan, 57, a creative director who lives in Harlem, knows what it's like to be on a ventilator, a machine used to help people breathe in times when they can't fully on their own.
"It's all coming back to me," Trahan told Business Insider.
In 2011, Trahan underwent triple bypass surgery after a spontaneous coronary artery dissection. When she woke up from surgery, she was on a ventilator. The experience was disorienting. She couldn't speak, she was strapped down, she didn't know what time it was, and she wasn't sure what would come next.
She didn't know if she was getting better. She didn't know if she'd always be living on a ventilator, a reality she wasn't interested in.
When the ventilator was removed a few days later, she was groggy and the room she was in felt different than before. "Nothing really made sense," Trahan said.
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