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California woman sets up mariachi serenade for husband fighting COVID-19

FULLERTON, Calif. — A California woman whose husband is on a ventilator battling COVID-19 turned to “The Hand of God” to send a message of hope.

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Patty Trejo organized a mariachi serenade on Monday to play outside the St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton for her husband, Joseph Trejo, KNBC reported.

Joseph Trejo has been hospitalized in the intensive care unit the last 10 days for complications from COVID-19, is unconscious and on a ventilator, the television station reported.

As the band played the couple’s favorite song in the hospital’s parking lot, the music was beamed into the ICU via a smartphone, the Los Angeles Times reported. Patty Trejo, 54, said her husband responded, ever so slightly.

“I know he heard me and I know he heard the music,” Patty Trejo told the newspaper, referring to “La Mano de Dios” (“The Hand of God”) as performed by Aurelio Reyes el Gallo de Chiapas, a trio of mariachis she hired.

Joseph Trejo, 53, is in a medically induced coma and was put on a ventilator on Feb. 4, KTLA reported. That was the same day Patty Trejo’s 95-year-old father, Epie Rios, died after contracting COVID-19, the Times reported.

“(Joseph) loved mariachis and the song of his mother and his father is ‘La Mano de Dios,’ and he says this is our song, too,” Patty Trejo told KNBC. “His eyes opened a little, I heard a little cough and I felt that he could hear me and I began to pray the rosary so much. There at that moment, he opened his eyes again, and I said, ‘He is telling me that it is OK, that he has to rest a little more.’”

Patty Trejo, a teacher’s aide in the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District, said she knows that her husband, a locksmith with the Anaheim Union High School District, is not out of danger. JosephTrejo has also been battling complications from pneumonia since he was placed on the ventilator, the Times reported.

Patty Trejo and two of the couple’s sons, also had COVID-19 and recovered, the newspaper reported. All of them are hoping Joseph Trejo can do the same.

“We’re hoping the pneumonia will get better, and once that gets better he can start to recover,” Patty Trejo told the Times. “He gives me strength to keep on going and keep on fighting, and I just want to say ‘Thank you’ to everybody who has been helping us get through this.”

“I know they say if he’s not off (the ventilator) after 10 days, the chances are slim. But I say, ‘OK, it takes time to heal and I’ve seen miracles.’ He will be our miracle.”

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