Woman whose husband refused to take her off life support wakes up two months later

A woman on life support who doctors said had a 'zero percent' chance of survival managed to wake up two months after her husband refused to take her off.

In 2021, a woman was told she had contracted coronavirus while she was pregnant, having opted not to take the vaccine over fears that her pregnancy would end in a miscarriage after having three previously.

Autumn Carver was hospitalized and put on a ventilator before she had to give an emergency C-section birth to her son Huxley while she was 33 weeks pregnant, but shortly after her baby was born she was placed on life support.

Autumn required something called an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine, which removes carbon dioxide from red blood cells and provides oxygenation.

ECMO machines were being used to treat patients with severe cases of coronavirus and helped bring the mortality rate down in patients, but the chances of survival for patients in Autumn's situation were not comforting.

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Autumn's husband Zach said he 'was told that she had zero percent chance of survival' and called that the 'worst day of my life'.

She spent two months on the ECMO before being transferred from IU Health Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago in October.

Once there she was expected to receive a lung transplant, but specialist surgeon Dr Ankit Bharat made the choice to give her some more time to recover by herself.

He explained that patients who require an ECMO machine for over a month had a less than 'five percent' chance of recovery without a lung transplant.

However, her husband never gave up on her as he had refused to take her off life support and Dr Bharat's judgment that Autumn needed more time proved to be correct as her condition slowly but steadily improved.

Zach continued to document the progress of her recovery and Autumn finally got to meet her son Huxley on 19 October before her husband announced in November that she had been released from the intensive care unit.

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She went through physical, occupational and speech therapy before being allowed to return home on 1 December, 2021 to spend Christmas with her husband, two daughters and young son.

Her return home had been exactly what her daughters wanted for Christmas

Doctors called her recovery a 'miracle', saying she was able to leave hospital with 40 percent lung capacity and nerve damage in her leg.

While her lungs will never recover to pre-coronavirus levels, Dr Bharat said Autumn would still be able to 'lead a normal life' with her family.

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