Home sweet home: Man leaves New Mexico hospital after 550-day stay for COVID-19

ROSWELL, N.M. — A Roswell, New Mexico, man is finally home after spending more than a year in an Albuquerque hospital recovering from a severe COVID-19 infection.

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When KOB asked Donnell Hunter how it felt to be home after a 550-day hospital stay, he admitted that words failed him.

“I can’t even put it into words,” Hunter told the TV station.

According to KOB, Hunter was admitted for COVID-19 treatment in September 2020, where he spent most of the first year on a ventilator.

“I lost usage of my hands, of my arms, of everything, my legs, so I had to wait for all that to come back and do a lot of rehab, speech therapy, learn how to eat, learn how to swallow. I had to learn everything all over again,” Hunter told the TV station.

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Hunter’s wife, Ashley Hunter, said that her husband’s care was similar to caring for a newborn who is learning how to do things for the first time, NBC News reported.

“I wanted him to come home and feel like home. I didn’t want to feel like we were in the hospital, so I tried to make things look as least hospital-looking as possible,” she told KOB.

Meanwhile, Hunter has finally met his first grandson, born while he was hospitalized, and marveled at the VIP treatment the neighborhood rolled out for his homecoming, including a police escort from Albuquerque, NBC News reported.

“He’s a year now, and he acts like he had been knowing me all his life, so as soon as I woke up this morning he was the first thing on my mind,” he told KOB.

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