DANVILLE, Pa. — According to doctors at Geisinger Medical Center, Dan Bisset, 48, was on the brink of death, but thanks to a certain machine at the hospital, Bisset made a full recovery.
Bisset spent 25 days at Geisinger Medical Center and was in a medically induced coma for two weeks with life-threatening COVID-19 symptoms.
"Looking at him and seeing him there, he is one of the sickest patients I have seen in my young career and in my training, in the sense that multiple portions of his body were shutting down," said Dr. John Sobuto.
While he was in the hospital, Bisset's parents contracted the virus. His dad later died from coronavirus symptoms.
"He spent 12 days in the medically induced coma, and he knows nothing about our mom, he knows nothing about our dad, nothing about the fact that our dad has now passed, or the fact that my mother is now admitted to the same hospital that he is in," said Bisset's sister Lisa Harvey.
Doctors say Bisset was on the brink of death.
"Dan's chance at that point from what those studies show, the numbers may be different now, but at the time, his likelihood of death was 95%."
However, just last week, doctors say he made a remarkable recovery. Geisinger staff placed Bisset on an ECMO machine. The machine is designed to act as another set of lungs.
"ECMO is extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, which is a fancy term of saying oxygenation of the blood outside the body," explained ECMO coordinator Evan Gajkowski. "We were lucky enough at Geisinger to have it, and that's something I'm going to be grateful for, for the rest of my career."
Bisset was discharged from the hospital last week, and more than 100 Geisinger staff members gathered to celebrate his recovery.
"I know I had some wonderful nurses in the ICU that I just can't speak enough about," Bisset said.
Bisset is currently rehabbing with Geisinger staff at a rehab facility to help build back up his strength. He is scheduled to return home next week.
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