80-year-old Israeli recovers from COVID-19 in the US after four months
"We were called to the hospital four different times to say goodbye but he made it. We didn't have to say goodbye," Woidislawsky's wife, Rita said
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFIchilov Medical team at the coronavirus unit, in the Ichilov hospital, Tel Aviv, Israel, July 28, 2020.(photo credit: YOSSI ALONI/FLASH90)Pennsylvania Hospital's first coronavirus patient to be admitted at the ICU, 80-year-old Avram Woidislawsky, has recovered from the virus after four long months where he battled for his life, 6abc News reported."We were called to the hospital four different times to say goodbye but he made it. We didn't have to say goodbye," Woidislawsky's wife, Rita told 6abc News.Woidislawsky was admitted at the hospital on March 22 and was intubated for 81 days, as well as two months under medically-induced coma. He was released from the hospital on May 27, surrounded by his friends and family.Woidislawsky was born in Russia during World War II. He moved to Israel at the age of 10 and later served in the IDF. Woidislawsky and his wife, whom he's been married to for 53 years, moved to the US in 1966. During his lifetime, Woidislawsky was very physically active, playing tennis every night.After getting diagnosed with coronavirus and spending four months of his life in hospital, Woidislawsky had to be transferred to Good Shepherd Penn Partners Rehabilitation Center in Philadelphia where he learned to walk and talk again."When he first came in, he was in pretty rough shape," Kimberly Tice, a registered nurse with Good Shepherd, told 6abc News. "By the end of his stay, he was walking around the gym with a walker, which is pretty amazing from how far he's come."Now, Woidislawsky can finally rest at home, having already assisted the hospital by serving as a model from which doctors and nurses could learn how to handle the COVID-19 pandemic.
