The first Mainer to receive transfusions of antibody-rich blood plasma says he remembers dreams of two groups chanting while he was on a ventilator for 18 days.
Richard Stevenson said one group was chanting, “Let him die, let him die, let him die!” while the other chanted “Go Rich, go Rich, go Rich!”
Stevenson, of Vinalhaven, told the Bangor Daily News that he credits his survival to the plasma transfusions at Mid Coast Hospital. He was the first person in Maine to get the experimental therapy.
Stevenson believes he was exposed in December on an airplane long before the virus became widely known in the U.S. He never knew for sure whether he had COVID-19 then. But his symptoms returned, and he tested positive in March.
He was weaned from the ventilator little more than a week after receiving plasma donated by COVID-19 survivors.
“I’m the luckiest person on earth, is how I feel,” he said.
