31 y.o. Kaylon McDaniel, a Jefferson County sheriff's detective in #Arkansas was on life support during a 3 month hospitalization from COVID. Prior to his illness he was not vaccinated, but received his covid vaccine upon discharge home #TheySurvivedCovid arkansasonline.com/news/2021/nov/… 
"I ended up catching covid-19 around the Fourth of July," said McDaniel, who tested positive after going to Urgent Care.
McDaniel said he tried to beat covid at home, but his slight headaches got worse, and then he started to experience shortness of breath.
McDaniel said he tried to beat covid at home, but his slight headaches got worse, and then he started to experience shortness of breath.
"When I first got to JRMC they had me on straight oxygen," said McDaniel. "Later on I was put on the ventilator for a while."
On July 25, McDaniel's poor health forced physicians to intubate him to place him in a medically induced coma. Two days later, he was airlifted to Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock.
"We were en route that morning and they told us to prepare for him not breathing and maybe passing away," said McDaniel's father, Thomas McDaniel. "They weren't expecting him to live."
"I woke up and it was September," said McDaniel, who added that he had to watch the news to confirm the month because he thought it was a joke. "I thought maybe a couple of days had passed. That's what it felt like to me."
Due to the tracheotomy he had to have to help him breathe, McDaniel said he couldn't talk. Describing the experience, he said it "felt like a dream" but seeing all of the IV lines connected to his body and a feeding tube in his nose, he knew it was a reality.
He went through speech therapy, physical therapy and occupational therapy and was released from the hospital on Nov. 4.
McDaniel, who admitted he didn't take covid-19 seriously and had not been vaccinated, advised others to "take the necessary precautions so you don't have to go through a near-death experience as I did."
McDaniel received his covid-19 shot the day he was discharged from the hospital. Woods said many others who did not believe in the seriousness of covid-19 had a change of heart once they witnessed McDaniel's condition and went to go get vaccinated.
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