NYPD lieutenant wins coronavirus battle after nearly 6 months in hospital, 3 months on ventilator

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An NYPD lieutenant made it home after battling the coronavirus in three hospitals for 168 days— 75 of them on a ventilator, according to reports.

Doctors were not certain 59-year-old Lt. Yvan Pierre-Louis would recover, according to NYPD officials.

"I feel blessed," Pierre-Louis told Newsday. "From no hope to hope, that was a lot."

Cheers greeted Pierre-Louis at his homecoming in Hempstead, L.I., on Saturday.

Doctors discharged him from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where his daughter Diane Latham is a nurse.

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NYPD Lt. Yvan Pierre-Louis gave a thumbs-up Saturday at his home after surviving long battle with coronavirus. (NYPD)

His 86-year-old mother, Maria Lina Pierre-Louis, died in May of COVID-19 while he was in a coma, Newsday reported.

The coronavirus sickened Pierre-Louis in late March. He was admitted to NYU Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, L.I., on March 28 and placed on a ventilator that night, Newsday reported.

At Penn, the robust police officer was unconscious on a ventilator, bloated by 50 pounds of fluid, with sores on his face from lying on his stomach, a position that helps COVID-19 patients breathe, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Saturday. His doctor told Latham and her mother, Isabelle, he would soon be taken off the ventilator whether they approved or not.

Latham recalled a doctor saying her father had no chance of surviving and the ventilator was needed for other patients, the paper reported.

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“We’ve seen people who have been as sick as him, but not just to have a recovery that was so prolonged, but ultimately was so successful …,” Penn doctor Andrew Courtwright told the Inquirer. “It’s a remarkable testament to him and his family."