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AFCA Executive Director Todd Berry on Surviving COVID-19: ‘I Feel Very Fortunate To Be Here’

Alan Poizner/For The Tennessean/USA Today

Lisa Berry told her husband to put the doctor on the phone. She couldn’t believe the words she had just heard.

They want to put you on a ventilator?! That doesn’t make sense.

But that was exactly what the doctor told her. Hospital staff were preparing to connect her husband to the breathing machine by inserting a tube down his windpipe and into his lungs. He had COVID-19 double pneumonia, and doctors said he had a 50-50 chance of survival at best.

About a year earlier, Lisa’s seemingly healthy brother was in the same position.