TROY, Ohio — Amy De Vos is a 45-year-old mother of three from Troy, Ohio, who works as a respiratory therapist at an extended care facility for Premier Health Networks.

But her life was derailed when she contracted COVID-19.

“I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “I’ve never had breathing issues. I was taken up to a room I was in there for a little while trying to fake that I could breathe, because I knew that I was probably going to get intubated, and I did not want that. But I was then taken to ICU and I was ready to be intubated because I felt so horrible.”

• Premier Health respiratory therapist Amy De Vos nearly lost her life to COVID-19
• Her three daughters and husband all prepared to say their final goodbyes
• Through a breakthrough clinical trial under emergency FDA approval, she recovered, and was discharged after spending nearly a month in the hospital at Upper Valley Medical Center

Amy’s condition worsened over time, as she experienced a seizure on top of her severe coronavirus symptoms. She also has lupus, which made finding a cure for her even more difficult.

“Amy was on life support and she was essentially being maxed out of a lot of the medications that could be possibly given to her,” Dr. Eleina Mikhaylov, a neurologist with Premier Health.

In total, Amy spent 29 days in the hospital, 16 of which were on a ventilator. Her family was preparing to say their final goodbyes. Her husband Tom said it was like living in a nightmare.

“Within the highlight of our nightmare was that Monday the 23rd we all came to the hospital to see she was maxed out on the venting and her oxygen was only 70 percent,” he said. “It’s something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”

But thankfully for Amy, Dr. Mikhaylov reached out to a colleague for a solution to actually weaken her immune system in order for her to start recovering from COVID-19. Dr. Tom Pitts of Hudson Medical and Premier Health explains:

“The complement is basically this swat team, an immunologic mega-soldier that’s willing to destroy organ tissue in a plight to dislodge a provocateur,” Pitts said. “Meaning the virus comes in, causes the complement to overreact. The complement is willing to destroy the lung in the process of trying to dislodge this virus.”

Pitts said the drug Soliris allows for control to turn off the immune system.

“The immune system is killing you and it has no business being there. It’s not participating in viral clearance. So you’re not losing anything turning it down or off.”

So Pitts and Mikhaylov went through the steps to gain emergency FDA approval to treat Amy with Soliris. Soon after the first treatment, Amy’s condition started to improve.

“You start getting hope again,” Tom De Vos said. “How she improved only after a couple hours after the drug was administered, I couldn’t believe it.”

And after a few weeks of continued dosage, Amy recovered, and was released from the hospital on April 17. After nearly losing her life to COVID-19, she and her family are calling the treatment a miracle.

“Even when I think about it now, I just can’t believe it,” Amy said. “I just feel lucky. I just feel so thankful to everybody.”