“I should have been shot”

BILLINGS – On his way to the hospital a month ago, Adam Ptaszynski said he felt like he was not going to be okay.

“I should have been shot, but I was too stubborn and too stupid,” he said recently from his room at the Billings Clinic.

He had been diagnosed with COVID-19 three weeks earlier as he and his wife, Patricia, were traveling across the country.

The retired Marine Corps and National Guard member said he had to be intubated the day he arrived.

“It scared me,” he said.

Sedated and intubated, Ptaszynski oscillated between life and death.

He’s spent a full week on a ventilator, two more weeks in intensive care and now that he’s free from COVID, he’s starting his second week in his hospital room.

“COVID has torn me apart,” he said, “I have to relearn how to walk and move around. I’m too weak. I’m learning to do a lot of things again. And I’m 57. ‘is hard.”

The man from Virginia openly admits that politics played a major role in his decision not to get the vaccine, but fear of dying is now driving him to advocate with others.

“We must all put aside our political and personal prejudices and be shot at,” he said.

In Yellowstone County, 70,187 of the eligible population was vaccinated on Tuesday, or about 51%, according to the Montana COVID-19 tracker. That’s slightly lower than Montana’s 52 percent vaccination rate.

As of Tuesday, 107 people were hospitalized for COVID-19 at the two hospitals in Billings. Of these, 90 patients have not been vaccinated against COVID-19.

Christy Bazter, director of intensive care at the Billings Clinic, says she’s a little desperate at the moment.

“We are seeing a young population of patients admitted, who are seriously ill, of whom we do not know if these people will go home and see their families again,” she said.

She said more than 90% of inpatients and intensive care patients are not vaccinated at the Billings Clinic.

She said hospital resources could hardly be stretched any more than they already are, and the hospital is well overcapacity.

“So I would encourage people to think about getting the vaccine so that we don’t have to be one of the patients in the intensive care unit when we are out.”

For those who are still on the fence, Ptaszynski said to get out of the fence: “Get the hell out of it.”

* RiverStone Health vaccination clinics.
· September 22, from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., Billings Public Library Community Hall
· September 23, 11 am-1pm, RiverStone Health (4 story building)
· September 29, from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., Billings Public Library Community Hall
· October 5, from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., Billings Public Library Community Hall
· October 7 4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m., Healthy by Design’s Gardener’s Market
· October 12, from noon to 2 p.m., Billings Public Library Community Hall
· October 20, from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., Billings Public Library Community Hall
· October 27, 2 p.m. – 4 p.m., Billings Public Library Community Hall