Woman battles COVID for 4 months in hospital, has no memory of it

In August, a woman went to the emergency room and was diagnosed with COVID-19. She spent months in the hospital and on a ventilator.

Alicia Berrios-Snyder says that, now, she’s received the best gift anyone could get around the holidays – the gift of life. After her four-month-long battle with COVID-19, Berrios Snyder, 53, survived and was released from the hospital. She’s back home with her family just in time for Christmas.

“This little old lady that came up to me said, ‘can I hold your hand? I’ve never met a miracle before.’ And my heart just melt,” said Berrios-Snyder.

She was diagnosed with COVID-19 in August. And Berrios-Snyder says she remembers being rushed into the emergency room but has no recollection of the four months that followed. “I don’t remember anything until the day I woke up. And when I woke up, I had tubes up my nose, I had IVs in both arms, and I had a feeding tube,” she said.

Barios-Snyder was in the ICU and on a ventilator for 14 weeks. Doctors had little hope after that.

William Snyder is Alicia’s husband. “We had everything set up for 10:00 on the 27th to come in and disconnect her off life support and let her pass, then I got that phone call on the 25th…her daughter called me and told me I had to get to the hospital quick,” Snyder said.

Alicia had woken up. Everyone was calling it a miracle. “That’s pretty much what everybody in the hospital called me. They didn’t call me by my name. They called me ‘miracle;’ because it’s an absolute miracle that I’m here,” said Berrios-Snyder.

There is one thing she wants people to learn from her experience. “I just want people to know that COVID is real. And there is no joke. And if you have not been vaccinated yet, please, by all means, go get vaccinated,” said Berrios-Snyder. “Get the booster, do whatever they are telling you to do because I don’t want anyone to have to suffer the way I had to suffer. ”

“I don’t ever want to go through this or be this close to death again because I might not have another chance,” she said.

Alicia Berrios-Snyder says she has gotten through this time with the support of friends, family and God. She also wants to thank the staff and nurses who cared for her during that four-month hospital stay. She says these health care workers never gave up on her.