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Doctor acts out final moments of COVID-19 before death
A critical care physician filmed a simulation of the final moments of COVID-19 care before death from the perspective of a patient.
A doctor recorded sobering video that simulated what it would look like from the point of view of a dying COVID-19 patient who is about to intubated.
Dr. Kenneth Remy is a Washington University researcher and an adult and pediatric critical care physician at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Remy, who is also a city councilman for the city Wildwood, Missouri recorded the video and tweeted it on Nov. 21.
The video starts off with the recording device zooming in and out, with only Remy’s PPE-clad face in sight.
Freeze frame of Dr. Remy simulating intubating a COVID-19 patient for a ventilator. (Dr. Kenneth Remy via Storyful)
“This is what it looks like when you breathe 40 times a minute at an oxygen level that is dipping well below 80,” Remy is heard saying behind his mask. “This is what it’s going to look like.”
Remy then sets his recording device down continuing to narrate. “I hope, that the last moments of your life don’t look like this,” Remy says as he simulates intubating a patient for a ventilator.
“Because, this is what you’ll see at the end of your life if we don’t start wearing masks when we’re out in public,” Remy says. “When we don’t practice social distancing. When we don’t wash our hands frequently. Because I promise, you this will be what you see.”
Remy appears to become emotional as he continues to warn against the dangers of not heeding health experts’ advice to help slow the spread of COVID-19.
“I promise you, this is what your mother, or your father, or your children, when they get COVID disease, will see at the end of their life. This is serious. I beg you, please practice the precautions to reduce transmission of COVID disease so that we can effectively prevent disease for you and your loved ones,” Remy says.
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Remy’s emotional plea comes as virus cases surge throughout the country and millions of Americans begin to travel once again for the holiday season, despite urgent warnings and pleas from health experts to stay home.
As of Nov. 25, the United States leads the world in number of coronavirus cases with over 12.6 million, and a death toll that has surpassed 260,000, according to Johns Hopkins data.
Globally, more than 60,101,000 virus cases had been reported, while 1.4 million deaths had been attributed to the virus.
More than 88,000 people in the U.S. — an all-time high — were in the hospital with COVID-19 as of Tuesday, pushing the health care system in many places to the breaking point, and new cases of the virus have been setting records, soaring to an average of over 174,000 per day.
The Associated Press and Storyful contributed to this report.