COVID patient who survived coma reunites with Penn care team
Two years after he was in a coma and on a ventilator, Jeff Dillard returned to the hospital to raise a Wawa iced tea to the people who saved his life. “I’m thankful for every day.”
In 2022, Jeff Dillard almost died at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
The public works employee from Oxford in Chester County had a severe case of COVID-19 in December 2021 and was transferred to Penn, where he spent months, part of which were in a coma and on a ventilator.
On Monday, Dillard was back at Penn for a happy reason: to thank the care team that saved his life.
There were a lot of smiles as Dillard clinked a bottle of Wawa iced tea with Jennifer Olenik, one of the doctors who cared for him. The drink (with ice) was one of his first requests when he woke from his coma, his throat parched from the breathing tube.
“There was a gentleman that he told me, ‘Well, when you get through all of this, I will make sure you get your Wawa tea,’” Dillard recalled.
Other than that, Dillard said he doesn’t remember much about his time at Penn. He doesn’t even recognize the faces of many of the people who cared for him. But he knew he wanted to thank them for saving his life. “I’ll never forget it,” he told them.
“The first couple years of COVID were such a vulnerable time for us as health-care workers,” said Olenik, also an assistant professor of hospital medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at Penn. “Jeff, your gratitude helped lift us up, and your story gave us hope. We’re so glad that you’ve made a full recovery, and thank you for bringing us together.”
Dillard still carries traces of the experience: His right vocal chord is paralyzed and his fingers get numb, but he can work and continue doing what he loves: play bluegrass in several bands.
He said his brush with death and the long hospitalization gave him a more optimistic outlook on life. “I’m thankful for every day.”