Lawrence Garbuz, a lawyer who traveled to New York for his work, tested positive for COVID-19 on March 2 in New Rochelle, a city in Westchester County, about 27 km north of Manhattan.
“I’m grateful to be alive,” Garbuz told NBC’s “TODAY” in a pre-recorded interview, sitting next to his wife and legal partner, Adina. “I just think it’s a cough. A winter cough and, frankly, I’m not sure the medical staff thought about it when I was tested.
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“Listen, I’m a lawyer, ” he continued. “I was at a table all day. I think at the time we were like other people who could have traveled abroad, which I hadn’t done. In fact, I hadn’t been to China.
“I went to the doctor and he examined me, and he said I had to go to the emergency room right away,” Garbuz said. “We went to the hospital. After entering the emergency room, I probably have no memory of everything that happened until I woke up from the coma. So it’s like three weeks of my life was probably gone and I fell asleep all this. “
New Rochelle, an idyllic New York suburb, first on the American cultural map in the 1960s when actor Dick Van Dyke’s character on his eponymous television screen settled there. It gained a new reputation after adapting to the first access point known to coronavirus in the United States.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on March 10 that he would send National Guard troops to enforce a mile-long “containment zone” around temple young Israel synagogue in New Rochelle, where Garbuz, who was then hospitalized by COVID-19, had attended the events.
NEW ROCKLE BECOMES GHOST TOWN AMID CORONAVIRUS EPIDEMIC BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF NATIONAL GUARD
The father of 50-year-olds took the Metro-North exercise to Grand Central Station to paint at his law firm in Manhattan, Lewis and Garbuz, P.C. It was time to test positive for COVID-19 in the state and the first in Westchester County, where the contagion spread temporarily.
“These were the first few days. Did the coronavirus seem to you the doctor’s first stop? HE asked NBC’s SAVANNAH Guthrie, to which Garbuz replied: “Not at all, it was not mentioned at all.
“We thought, “Okay, you have pneumonia. Let’s take a medication and go home, ” said his wife. Over the weekend, the stage got worse and worse. I had trouble breathing. I was looking to keep him calm. You feel bad and it’s scary.
Adina Lewis Garbuz said she chose her husband to be transferred to New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan and asked to be put into the ambulance. Unable to her due to established protocol to prevent the spread of the virus, she said she feared her husband would wake up alone.
“My wife kept my life, ” said Garbuz. “He’s a user who solves quickly, with a smile.”
He also thanked the medical staff for “doing a surely magnificent job.”
“Many nurses entered the room and were very compassionate. There was a particular user. She said, “Lawrence, I was praying for you, ” he added.
“All he cared about was his family. The first words he said to me were, “I love you.” That’s it,” Lewis Garbuz said, recalling the first time she allowed her to talk to her husband after he came out of the coma.
“It’s like a miracle for all of us, ” said her daughter Ella. “It’s obvious that it’s very, very scary, and we didn’t know what was going to happen. Bring him a huge house for us.”
About four miles from the gates of the New Rochelle containment area, WestChester County police shut down Glen Island Park, a 105-acre park on Glen Island on Long Island Sound, to establish a cell verification site for others potentially inflamed with coronavirus.
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On Monday, at least 1341 other people in Westchester County died after being inflamed with the virus. At the height of the epidemic, the county recorded 30 to 40 new deaths in line with the day. There have been more than 31,000 cases shown in the region.
New York State has reported at least 335,395 cases of coronavirus, with at least 21,478 deaths, to the State Department of Health.