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COURTESY PAUL AND KAREN GREENSLADE
Paul and Karen Greenslade, of the United Kingdom, both tested positive for COVID-19. Paul Greenslade is recovering at a friend’s home in Hawaii Kai after spending three weeks in the hospital for treatment for the disease.
United Kingdom resident Paul Greenslade, 79, is now recovering after spending more than three weeks hospitalized at Straub Medical Center for a coronavirus infection.
Greenslade was released from Straub Medical Center on Friday, a day after his birthday, having beaten grim national odds. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said eight out of 10 U.S. deaths due to the coronavirus have been adults 65 years old and older.
“I think it’s purely luck,” Greenslade said. “I had luck on luck on luck. In the right island. I was with the right hospital. They have ventilators. They had equipment. I was very lucky.”
Greenslade was taken by ambulance to Straub on March 24 after walking into the Doctors on Call clinic at the Sheraton Waikiki for cold-like symptoms. The clinic staff told him his oxygen was low and that he needed to go to the hospital immediately. The last thing he remembers is getting in the ambulance.
After arriving at Straub, he was placed in the intensive care unit for about 10 to 12 days and was unconscious while connected to a ventilator. When his condition began improving, doctors moved him out of the ICU, but he continued to be supported by medical equipment, including a feeding tube and a respirator for oxygen.
“My head was totally muddled,” he said in a phone call today. “Hallucinating of all sorts.”
He credited Straub’s doctors and staff for his quick recovery and said the best part of being out of the hospital was being with his wife, Karen, of 56 years.
Karen Greenslade, 76, who also tested positive for the coronavirus, but only had headaches and lost her sense of smell before recovering, said the hospital staff did not have good expectations for her husband’s recovery at the beginning of his treatment.
“We weren’t expecting to see him again,” she said. “It wasn’t a good time.”
Instead, the Greenslades were making video calls with family today in the U.K. and Canada who were glad to talk with Paul Greenslade again.
“They’ve done a remarkable job, all the doctors and the nurses,” Karen Greenslade said. “We’re so grateful.”
As of today, the state’s tally of coronavirus cases has risen to 574, up 21 from Friday.
A total 410 patients have recovered since the start of the outbreak, with health officials reporting 20 new recoveries today. More than 70% of the people who have been infected in Hawaii are now classified as recovered.
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