‘This is what you’ll see at the end of your life’: ICU doctor warns against death from COVID-19
As the world is slowly easing travel restrictions and other COVID-19 health protocols, more people continue to fall into the trap of thinking they can resume life as normal.
Unfortunately, people who are infected with the disease are not the only ones suffering its consequences. There are also their loved ones and healthcare workers.
US-based doctor Kenneth Remy is one of the many who are bone-tired of the cycle.
Remy is an ICU doctor at Missouri Baptist Medical Center. Part of his job since the onset of the pandemic is to break the news of a COVID-19 patient’s demise to their loved ones.
“It’s the worst way to ever start a conversation,” he said in an interview with Tony Messenger of St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Remy also revealed having 12 of these conversations over the past week. 11 of which were related to COVID-19.
Desperate to put an end to these deaths, the physician-scientist made a plea for everyone to strictly follow the safety protocols preventing the spread of the deadly virus.
Remy uploaded a video of himself on Twitter on November 21, where he is seen fully dressed in personal protective gear, while looking down on the camera.
He began mimicking the heavy breathing of a COVID-19 patient about to be intubated, and said, ““This is what it looks like when you breath 40 times a minute, have an oxygen that’s dipping well below 80. This is what it’s gonna look like.”
“I hope that the last moments of your life don’t look like this,” he added.
He then held a laryngoscope and an endotracheal tube—tools used in the intubation process—in front of the camera and explained, “Because this is what you’ll see at the end of your life if we don’t wear masks when we’re out in public, when we don’t practice social distancing, when we don’t wash our hands frequently. ‘Cause I promise you, this is what you’ll see. This is what your mother or your father or your children when they covid disease will see at the end of your life.”
“This is serious. I beg you please practice the precaution to reduce the transmission of COVID disease so that we can effectively prevent this disease for you and your loved ones,” Remy concluded.
Watch the video here:
Please listen as this is dire. I don’t want to be the last person that looks in your frightened eyes. #MaskUp @DrKenRemy1 @WUSTLmed pic.twitter.com/qwb4eERlfE
— Kenneth E. Remy, MD, MHSc, FCCM (@DrKenRemy1) November 21, 2020
As of writing, the world has a total of 59.7 million COVID-19 cases and 1.4 million deaths. 12.6 million cases and 259,767 deaths are from the United States. The Philippines, meanwhile, has 421,722 COVDI-19 cases and a death toll of 8,185.