Young COVID Patient Goes From 'Invincible' To Vaccine Advocate After 5-Month Hospital Stay

A 26-year-old man from Texas was discharged Tuesday from a hospital in Florida after battling with COVID-19 for over five months.

Fabian Granado, from Garland, Texas, spent almost two months in a coma, and a total of 164 days in the hospital battling the virus. After going through a near-death ordeal, Fabian Granado, who remained unvaccinated because he thought he was invincible to the virus, now urges people to get jabbed.

"I'm feeling wonderful," Fabian Granado, said as he walked out of the UF Health Jacksonville hospital in Florida on Tuesday. "It's been a long 5½ months at the hospital getting my lungs healed and being able to talk, walk and you know, be alive and a human again," he added, as reported by The Florida Times-Union.

Fabian Granado tested positive for coronavirus and was admitted to the intensive care unit of the facility on Aug. 21, 2021, after his condition deteriorated. When Fabian's lungs stopped working, the doctors put him on an ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) machine, that pumps blood and oxygen for patients with lung and heart damage.

While the young man battled for life and stayed hooked to the heart-lung machine for 109 days, his family thought they lost him. "I came to Florida from Texas thinking I was coming to bury my son,” said his father, Rene Granado. "And when I got here and saw the condition he was in, I thought it was a real possibility he was not going to be coming back home alive. That is the worst experience a parent can go through," Rene Granado recollected, News 4 Jax reported.

Though his father advised him multiple times to get vaccinated, Fabian Granado thought he was in good health and believed he did not need a jab. "I thought I was invincible. I didn't think it would happen to me, and of course, it did happen, and I was wrong," he said.

"Apparently, my heart stopped a couple of times. It was a long rough road," he revealed. "I'm pretty sure that if I had gotten the vaccine to start with, it would have been a lot better. I wouldn't have suffered nearly as much," he added, expressing his regret.

Though discharged from the hospital, Fabian Granado still needs time for a full recovery. He would be spending some time at a Jacksonville rehabilitation hospital before going home to Texas.