Florida COVID patient returns home after 200 days in hospital, coma

Jack Ghiz breathing with help from oxygen machine, walking with help from wife

MELBOURNE, Fla. – For a man who couldn’t breathe and whose family had prepared his obituary, 54-year-old Jack Ghiz is getting another chance to live and love again.

Ghiz is back home with his wife and dog after he spent more than 200 days hospitalized with COVID-19, including in a medically-induced coma.

“I do believe that miracle was performed with myself and my body and my spirit,” Ghiz said.

It was celebrating the Christmas spirit last year when Ghiz said he started feeling sick.

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He went to Holmes Regional Medical Center and would not leave a hospital for several months, sedated in a medically-induced coma until June.

Ghiz said when he awoke, he didn’t know what happened.

“I had been in a six-month dream, the whole time I was sick,  and I remember my first thought was, ‘Well, it can’t be too bad if Amy’s here,’” Ghiz remembered.

Amy Ghiz is now helping her 6-foot-6 inch-tall husband walk again.

Jack Ghiz also has a home nurse.

He breathes with the help of an oxygen machine and just this week he caught pneumonia.

Like COVID, recovering from another infection will take time but Amy Ghiz said he can sleep again with her husband at home.

“There were many, many nights couldn’t rest, I couldn’t think basically, like grieving because he took so long to get from point A, to point B, to point C,” she said.

Jack Ghiz said his wife stuck by his side throughout the entire ordeal.

‘’I’ve got a great wife and I couldn’t be happier with her,” he said.


About the Author:

James joined News 6 in March 2016 as the Brevard County Reporter. His arrival was the realization of a three-year effort to return to the state where his career began. James is from Pittsburgh, PA and graduated from Penn State in 2009 with a degree in Broadcast Journalism.

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