SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - A man who spent eight months in the hospital battling COVID-19 and related complications was finally released Tuesday.
32-year-old Jose Eduardo Moreno Amador, who goes by Eduardo Moreno, was transferred to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla in July. He was on life support for a total of six months and in a coma for three.
"Eduardo came to us in mid-July with an advance degree of respiratory failure from COVID pneumonia," said Dr. David Scott McCaul, Moreno's primary ICU physician. "His lungs really had not healed to the point where he can come off that machine support until January of this year."
Moreno, a Los Angeles County resident, first became sick with COVID-19 in July while in Mexico with family. A Scripps Health spokesperson said he was then taken across the border to be treated at Scripps in Chula Vista. When his condition worsened on July 19th, he was taken to Scripps La Jolla and put into the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Tuesday, hospital staff cheered him on as he was wheeled out of the hospital's front doors.
"We never wanted to give up, and to see him here going home it's just so special, and it just means so much to all the ICU nurses here and all the nurses that have taken care of him," said Carise Edwards, an ICU nurse who cared for Moreno. "He's really become family to us, and it's just so special."
Moreno declined to comment Tuesday, but his mother spoke while standing by his side.
"I told my sister in the morning, 'you know what pinch me, I think I'm dreaming, he's coming home'," said Cecilia Amador, Moreno's mother. "I thank God, and I thank the doctors and nurses in the ICU; all of them are so great."
Amador was able to stay connected to her son through video chats and prayers. "Being a mom, I was just crying at home, and Dr. McCaul said, 'don't worry, he is going to make it home'," she said. "He went through a lot."
According to a Scripps Health spokesperson, Moreno did have one comorbidity, obesity.
Moreno still has a long road to a full recovery and will continue with physical therapy. He won't be able to return to work immediately, so his family has started a GoFundMe page to raise money for expenses and hospital bills. If you would like to help Moreno, click here.
