SUNRISE, Fla. – Sgt. Darwin Arroyo was home recovering on Friday after a 70-day stay in the hospital while battling COVID-19.
“There was a time when I wasn’t expecting to come out of it,” Arroyo, 36, said. “I thought I wasn’t going to make it.”
The 14-year veteran of the Sunrise Police Department said he contracted the virus at work in early August, and his symptoms worsened.
“I was throwing up. It was diarrhea, fever, shortness of breath,” Arroyo said. “Four days later I went to the hospital. They kept me.”
Early on, Arroyo said doctors thought he would need a lung transplant. Computed tomography scans and X-rays showed damage to his lungs.
He was intubated twice and put on an extracorporeal life support machine, a device that helps the heart and the respiratory system. His second round on life support proved to be a lifeline, Arroyo said. The husband and father of two started improving and walking.
Doctors released Arroyo from the Cleveland Clinic on Oct. 18, and he was able to hug his daughters for the first time in a long time. A line of officers and community members chanted his name as he walked out the front door. He calls his wife, Shamile, his rock.
“It was so surreal. The support and love that everyone showed me was amazing,” Arroyo said.
He had not yet gotten the vaccine when he was diagnosed with COVID-19, but he plans to get his shots when his doctors medically clear him in about three months.
“When I’m able to, I’m going to get the vaccine,” he said. “I know God uses all our life stories for a reason, so if anybody had to go through this, I’m glad it was me because I don’t wish that on anybody else.”
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