Blake Bargatze is telling people to get vaccinated after catching COVID in April after attending an indoor concert. He was hospitalized in Florida, but was moved to Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta where to get on an ECMO machine that pumped and oxygenated his blood outside his body.
Bargatze was in such bad shape that he was on the top of the organ donation list. His life was saved when he underwent a double lung transplant in Maryland. Bargatze will be on medication for the rest of his life.
His mom, Cheryl, told WXIA that her 24 year-old son wants his experience to be a wake up call for virus and vaccine deniers:
I just don’t want anyone else to go through this. It’s horrific. You hear the coughing, you hear the spasming. Four days after he went to the hospital, he was intubated.
MedicalXpress.com reports that some countries are requiring vaccinations.
(Source: WXIA, MedicalXpress.com)