Together Again: Dallas Couple Placed On Ventilators Survive COVID-19
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - A couple was reunited after both spending time in the ICU at Texas Health Dallas when they tested positive for the coronavirus just days apart.
Inseparable for almost 40 years, COVID-19 changed all that for Lorenzo and Elba Banales on April 11.
But the Dallas couple were together again Tuesday as they were wheeled out of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, well enough to go home.
Lorenzo, 56, entered the hospital COVID-19 positive on April 11 and was placed on a ventilator for 14 days beginning April 12, according to their daughter, Lorena Garcia.
Her mother, Elba, 52, was hospitalized April 16, tested positive and was placed on a ventilator for three or four days beginning April 19, she said.
"Texas Health Dallas care teams were sensitive to the couple's separation," said Jennifer Campbell, B.S.N., R.N., nurse manager of a medical-surgical unit, now a COVID-19 unit, where the couple was moved after the intensive care unit.
Lorenzo moved to the medical-surgery unit first, and when Elba came in nurses wheeled her bed past his door so they could see one another.
"It was important for them to know they were in the same area," Campbell said.
The negative pressure machines in their rooms were so loud they had to shout in order to hear each other, and their conversations carried into the hallways.
"It put a smile on everyone's face at the nurse's station," said Campbell.
Now that they're leaving the hospital, Garcia said her parents will either stay in quarantine with her or with one of her brothers.
Lorena, who interpreted for her Spanish-speaking parents, said Lorenzo wanted to let people know that they should take COVID-19 seriously.
