‘I never thought it would happen to me’
Brooklyn doctor tells harrowing tale of 10-month-long recovery from COVID-19
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Almost a year after he
was fi rst infected with
COVID-19 while working on
the frontlines at Brookdale
Hospital, internal medicine
doctor Sabarartham Shangmugananthan
still struggles
to walk more than a few feet
before his oxygen levels go
down.
“I never thought it would
happen to me. I’m very healthy,
never been sick,” said Shangmugananthan,
who goes by
Dr. Saba. “I knew it was a dangerous
disease, but I didn’t expect
it to come to this.”
The 62-year-old physician
and father-of-two returned to
his family and his home on
Long Island on Feb. 3, after
almost a year of being hospitalized
and slowly recovering
from a near-fatal case of the
novel coronavirus he believes
he contracted at the onset of
the pandemic.
Dr. Saba has no memory of
the months he was comatose
and on a ventilator that helped
him survive the highly-contagious
respiratory illness, but
believes he caught the virus
sometime after the fi rst patients
COURIER L 6 IFE, MARCH 5-11, 2021
arrived at the health facility
in mid-March.
The hospital is surrounded
by predominantly Black and
working-class neighborhoods,
including Brownsville, East
New York, and Canarsie, and
during the early weeks of the
pandemic African-American
and Hispanic New Yorkers
died at twice the rate from the
virus compared to their white
and Asian counterparts.
Due to scarce testing at the
time, it’s possible the veteran
physician got the bug from a
patient who hadn’t been registered
as COVID-positive by
the hospital.
“Maybe the other patients
that were not documented
as COIVD-19, we might have
been exposed to them,” he
said.
One of his colleagues
tested positive fi rst but only
had a mild case of the illness
and returned after 10 days.
Dr. Saba tested positive on
March 24.
“I had minor symptoms,”
he said.
Worsening symptoms
He stayed home for a few
days, taking medication and
self-isolating in his bedroom
from the rest of his family. Not
long after, he started having
trouble breathing so a friend
and fellow physician ran some
blood tests for him.
The results showed low
blood counts, deranged kidney
functions, and dehydration,
and Dr. Saba was on the fi rst
ambulance to a local hospital.
“I don’t remember much after
going to the hospital,” he said.
Doctors intubated him
and put him on a ventilator in
early April, and soon several
of his organs failed, including
his lungs and kidneys.
He was comatose and in intensive
care for three months
during which time he suffered
infections like pneumonia
and had to get several blood
transfusions. At one point his
family was ready to sign a donot
resuscitate order because
they didn’t know if he would
make it.
“My family was not sure
whether I would come back or
not, they were talking about
palliative care and getting
ready to sign a DNR,” Dr. Saba
said.
However, fellow doctors
advised the family otherwise,
saying he had a good chance
of recovering due to having no
history of health issues.
Signs of hope
Dr Saba’s condition started
improving, but he says his
memory of the worst months
is just a blur.
“It took about 3 months to
come back where I could communicate,”
he said. “For me it
was like a dream, you know.”
He went into rehab on July
15, while remaining on a ventilator
and a feeding tube.
At the end of October he was
transferred to a nursing home
for physical therapy.
In January, he was fi -
nally taken off the ventilator
and feeding tube and was allowed
to return home the next
month.
Dr. Saba still constantly
has oxygen fed into his nose
and has suffered permanent
lung damage due to the virus,
pneumonia, and being intubated
for a long period of time,
and the physician took several
breaks to cough heavily during
a phone interview with
Brooklyn Paper.
Brookdale Hospital physician Dr.
Saba recovered for more than 10
months from COVID-19. Dr. Saba
YEAR OF COVID-19
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