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‘I hope your last moments don’t look like this’: ICU doctor reveals what a dying Covid patient sees

‘Your personal liberty won’t matter to you when I put a breathing tube in you, and then you die,’ says Dr Kenneth Remy

James Crump
Wednesday 25 November 2020 19:23 GMT
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ICU doctor films video of breathing tube as plea to people to wear masks

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A doctor has recorded a video of what it looks like when a patient dies from Covid-19, in order to convince people to protect themselves by wearing face masks.

Dr Kenneth Remy, who works in the intensive care unit at Missouri Baptist Medical Centre in St Louis posted the 90-second video to Facebook on Saturday to show the “dire” circumstances faced by people dying from coronavirus.

“This is what it looks like when you breathe 40 times a minute, have an oxygen level that’s dipping well below 80,” Dr Remy says in the video as he simulates preparing a patient for intubation.

He then holds a laryngoscope and a breathing tube, which are used when intubating patients, in front of the camera and simulates sticking them down a patient’s throat.

“This is what it’s going to look like. I hope that the last moments of your life don’t look like this,” Dr Remy says.

The doctor then urges viewers to take Covid-19 seriously, by wearing face masks when out in public.

“Because this is what you’ll see at the end of your life if we don’t start wearing masks when we’re out in public,” he says.

“Because I promise you, this will be what you see. I promise you, this is what your mother, or your father, or your children when they get Covid disease, will see at the end of their lives. This is serious.”

Missouri is currently recording more than 4,000 coronavirus cases a day. Since the start of the pandemic, the state has recorded more than 279,000 positive tests and at least 3,750 deaths.

The number of coronavirus cases, deaths and related hospitalisations in St Louis are currently at the highest level since the start of the pandemic, according to the St Louis Dispatch.

Dr Remy told the Dispatch that he made the video to try to change the minds of people who choose not to wear a face mask because they feel it infringes on their personal liberty.

“Your personal liberty won’t matter to you when I put a breathing tube in you, and then you die,” Dr Remy added.

According to a tracking project hosted by Johns Hopkins University, there are now more than 12.6 million people who have tested positive for coronavirus in the US. The death toll has reached 260,190.

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