Unvaccinated man whose 7 children caught COVID urges people to get vaccinated

An unvaccinated man who almost died from COVID-19 urged people who haven’t already to get vaccinated.

Ben Anderson, 42 from Cameron, Missouri, began to feel ill in late June and was subsequently hospitalized with COVID, ending up in intensive care, Kansas City Star reported.

At one point about six weeks ago, the intensive care team called his wife to discuss his removal from the ventilator that had kept him alive for more than 20 days as he lay unconscious.

“As a Brazilian jujitsu practitioner, one thing we focus on a lot is defending ourselves against someone who tries to subdue us with a choke,” said Anderson, who described himself as a man of faith, in a video message from his hospital. bed.

“So I feel like I’m good enough to defend the strangulation, but this COVID was beyond my ability to defend myself and brought me down. And without miracles, and the help of nurses and doctors, my wife, I should have submitted. “

“I wasn’t sitting on oxygen and got sick and almost died. I was healthy and active and it came to me and brought me to my knees in a way that we don’t we weren’t expecting, ”he said. “I would like to warn anyone who is considering or hesitating to be vaccinated or to wear a mask, that they should do it, if not for themselves, for those around them.”

Anderson was not necessarily opposed to vaccination, but said in an interview with the Star that he had “just never had the time” to take a photo due to his busy job as a software product manager.

The 42-year-old said he knew before he got sick that hundreds of thousands of people had died from COVID-19 in the United States, but believed he was too tough to become one of them. them.

But after attending a rally in Chillicothe, Missouri on June 27, Anderson began to feel ill, with symptoms such as a persistent cough and a “foggy” feeling.

Anderson said he isolated himself in his room and stayed there for two weeks. All of her seven children who lived at home, aged three to 18, also contracted COVID-19. The only family member at home who did not get sick was his wife, the only one who had been vaccinated before.

The man’s condition continued to deteriorate until at one point his wife found him sitting on the shower floor, unable to stand.

“I never got better. I just kept getting worse,” Anderson said.

His wife rushed him to Cameron Regional Medical Center, where doctors said there was nothing more they could do to help him. Luckily for Anderson, an intensive care bed opened that night at the Research Medical Center in Kansas City and he was transferred there.

Intensive care units in the region have been operating at near full capacity for weeks, with Missouri experiencing a wave of infections fueled by the highly transmissible Delta variant.

“These nurses, these doctors, are overwhelmed. They are doing their best, but emergency rooms are so busy with COVID patients that they can’t even stop to clean up a patient’s vomit before they go. get a code blue and have to run because someone is dying, ”Anderson said from his intensive care unit at Research, where 95% of COVID-19 patients are not vaccinated.

“They don’t show us that on the evening news. People don’t get it. It’s not the sniffles.”

Anderson said he understands that not getting the vaccine puts his family at risk, noting that it is frustrating that wearing a mask and getting vaccinated has become so politicized.

“I can make a statement about my refusal to comply, but at what cost? The vaccine is clearly a way to protect us. This hole in my neck, the scar anyway, will always be there to remind me of the miracle,” he added. Anderson, who was released from the hospital on Tuesday, said.

“Sometimes miracles come in the form of scientific breakthroughs,” including vaccines, he told people who may be hesitant or suspicious of science.

Anderson’s infectious disease doctor Dr David McKinsey said he struggled to understand why some people choose not to be vaccinated.

“I don’t understand it,” McKinsey said. “Anyone who chooses not to receive the vaccine is at significant risk of contracting COVID and possibly dying. And they also put others at risk. The vaccine is safe.”