Marc Thibault was groggy and surrounded by beeping machines, but he was alert enough to know what it meant when he looked up and saw a priest, wearing protective gear, by his bedside at the Miriam Hospital in Rhode Island.
“Holy cow,” he thought to himself. “I’m 48 years old and I’m getting my last rites.”
Mr. Thibault, one of the first Americans diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, recounted days of pain and fear in his first interview Tuesday, speaking from the intensive-care unit at the Providence hospital where he has been for 13 days, fighting the illness that attacked his lungs.
“I was one inch from death,” he said, his voice weary. “No doubt about it. No doubt about it.”
Roughly 80% of Covid-19 cases tend to be mild or moderate, and more than 62,000 people globally have recovered. Older people or those with underlying health conditions are at a higher risk.
Mr. Thibault’s ordeal began with a much-awaited school trip abroad, a journey to Europe from Feb. 14 to 22 that went through Italy. Two others from the trip also tested positive, although they weren’t hit as hard as Mr. Thibault.
The married father of two is the popular vice principal of student life at San Raphael Academy, a private Catholic school in Pawtucket, a suburb of Providence. He knew travel would expand his students’ minds and was thrilled to chaperone the nine-day adventure that began in Milan and ended in Barcelona.
When the group of 38 people left the U.S., coronavirus was certainly in the news but there “were no cases of community-spread coronavirus in Italy and no CDC travel warning in effect,” the school said in a previous statement.
When the group landed in Milan, Mr. Thibault thought it was strange to see people in hazmat suits in the airport, but everything seemed calm. The group headed to Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera, and began what would be just two days of sightseeing in Italy.
But just in that short period, he began to hear about Italy cordoning off some towns, and by the time they left for the French Riviera he was relieved to be leaving Italy.
It was apparently too late. Italy would become one of the hardest-hit places for the virus.
A self-described germaphobe, Mr. Thibault isn’t sure exactly how he became infected. He said he used hand sanitizer constantly on the trip. But the group’s local tour guide said he felt like he was coming down with the flu, and he and Mr. Thibault passed a microphone back and forth to talk to the students. Mr. Thibault is unsure if the tour guide ever tested positive.
Mr. Thibault had no symptoms during the trip, but he felt unusually sluggish on the flight back to the U.S.
“Something is wrong,” he told his wife when he finally got home to Rhode Island near midnight on Saturday, Feb. 22. He went straight to bed, and then the next day, went to a walk-in clinic. Mr. Thibault has asthma, but he exercises everyday and said he rarely gets sick.
He said he told the clinic he had been to Italy and wondered aloud if he could have the novel coronavirus. He was told he didn’t fit the criteria at the time for the test because he didn’t really have the symptoms, which can include a fever or shortness of breath.
He stayed home from work, but just got worse, with growing fatigue, a dry cough and something that resembled bronchitis. He went to a hospital but was again told he didn’t meet the criteria for the test, he said.
Doctors there were concerned, however, and Mr. Thibault said he quickly got a call from the Rhode Island Department of Health, which told him to get tested immediately.
A health department spokesman said the agency can’t comment on any specific patient, but noted that the CDC’s guidance for testing has evolved. “We have reviewed each Rhode Island case carefully,” the spokesman said. “In each of those instances, the health-care facilities involved all responded appropriately.”
By later in the week, Mr. Thibault was at the Miriam Hospital, where was admitted. He tested positive for the virus.
He says the virus now hit him “like a hurricane.” He was weak and had trouble breathing. The hospital whisked him into the ICU, where nurses donned hazmat-style suits to enter his room.
They inserted a breathing tube, and put another tube down his throat for medicine to deal with pneumonia that developed in his lungs, he said.
Gagging and coughing, Mr. Thibault said he felt scared. His lungs would fill with saliva and nurses would dash in and clear them out, only to have to do it again two hours later.
“The feeling of choking. That was the worst part,” he said. “You feel like you’re asphyxiating, and you’re panicking because you can’t breathe.”
The agony went on for days.
His wife, and his two children, ages 20 and 15, were unable to visit, lest they become infected, too.
“Just get through the next hour, the next hour, the next hour,” Mr. Thibault told himself. “It’s just one time you quit and then you’re dead.”
Even though he was partially sedated, his mind kept spinning.
Last week, he forced himself to write a note to his wife, telling her that if his lungs collapsed, to not keep him on life support.
“I just didn’t want to have that on my wife’s shoulders. I just didn’t want her to do that,” he said. “I’m glad she never had to read that note.”
Slowly he began to get better. The doctors took out his breathing tube and to his relief, his lungs picked up the pace. When he could speak, he thanked the nurses.
“What these people did for me in that last two weeks, I’m forever indebted to them,” he said.
He said he is “coming through this” and hopes to be able to leave the hospital by the weekend. He said he has turned on the television and caught up on the news of the escalating virus. He is worried some people don’t realize how serious it can be and hopes people are taking the recommended safety steps, from washing hands frequently to staying home when sick, to avoid community spread.
“It almost killed me,” he said. “It’s alarming when I hear people minimize it as a simple cold. It was no simple cold for me.”
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