PAINESVILLE, Ohio (WJW) — After more than one month in the hospital and 17 days on a ventilator, Tim Wineman, 64, was discharged from the hospital after a long battle with COVID-19.
On Thursday, he was wheeled out of TriPoint Medical Center and greeted by a crowd of doctors, nurses and loved ones to cheers and applause.
Standing up from his wheelchair Wineman smiled and said, “I survived!”
The joy of the moment overshadowing so much pain his family says they experienced every day they were separated.
“It’s been a long 44 days,” said Stacy Davis standing with her son Corbin outside of the hospital.
“The hardest part was not being able to see him through all of this and at times knowing that we didn’t know if we were ever going to see him again.”
Davis says Wineman entered the hospital on March 30 and was placed on a ventilator where he remained until April 15.
Just as his health seemed to progress, Davis says she learned her grandfather Ernest Pierce, 88, succumbed to COVID-19.
*Read more stories on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, here.*
“My dad got off the ventilator that day and we found that out in the morning and that night my grandpa passed. Talk about a day of not knowing how to feel, that was a day,” she said.
At the hospital waiting to cheer for Wineman was the nurse who cared for him since he was first admitted to the hospital.
“To see this is truly amazing. They become part of your family almost because you are with them day in day out,” said RN Melissa Tekavic.
“You see the progression from bad to worse to getting better. You have to basically be their family for them because you can’t allow for their family to come in.”
Before he was driven away, Wineman thanked the team who saved his life.
“They took my life in their hands and they gave it back to me that’s about all I can say,” he said.
