Keith Smith, whose wife had gone to court to have his COVID-19 an infection handled with ivermectin, died Sunday night, a week after he acquired his first dose of the controversial drug.
He was 52.
Smith had been in UMPC Memorial for almost three weeks and had been within the hospital’s intensive care unit in a medically induced coma on a ventilator since Nov. 21. He had been recognized with the virus on Nov. 10.
His wife of 24 years, Darla, had gone to court to compel UPMC to treat her husband with ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug that has not been authorized for remedy of COVID-19.
York County Court Judge Clyde Vedder’s Dec. 3 choice didn’t compel the hospital to treat Keith with the drug, nevertheless it did enable Darla to have an impartial doctor administer it. He acquired two doses earlier than Keith’s situation grew worse, and the physician halted the remedy.
Keith Smith’s wife went to court to compel UPMC Memorial to treat his COVID-19 an infection with ivermectin. He died Sunday after receiving two doses of the controversial drug.
Ivermectin: Wife of York County man on ‘dying’s doorstep’ from COVID sues UPMC to use drug
Previously: Woman wins court battle over treating her husband’s COVID-19 with ivermectin. That was only the start.
“Tonight, around 7:45 p.m., my precious husband breathed his last breath,” Darla wrote on the web site caringbridge.org.
He died with Darla and their two sons, Carter and Zach, at his bedside. Darla wrote they’d time to communicate to Keith, individually and as a group, earlier than he handed away. “My boys are so strong,” she wrote. “They are my rock of solace.”
Last moments
She described his final moments.
“The nurses removed that cursed tube from his throat and he breathed on his own for a bit,” she wrote. “Then, slowly, the time between breaths lengthened. His heart hammered in his chest. Such a strong, valiant heart. Finally his pulse went to zero, his color paled immediately.
“The man in that bed did not look like Keith. He was gaunt, with scabs on his cheeks from three weeks of torture, having that godforsaken vent attached to his face. He had a full beard and mustache. His hair had grown like a wild man.”
Story continues
‘A Hail Mary’
Darla had sued UPMC to treat her husband with ivermectin after studying about comparable instances all through the nation, all filed by an legal professional in Buffalo, N.Y. She was assisted by a group known as Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, which promotes the usage of ivermectin within the remedy of the virus.
Whether the drug is efficient in treating COVID-19 is unproven and research cited by its proponents have been dismissed as being biased and together with incomplete or nonexistent information. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not authorized the usage of the drug to treat COVID-19, and the National Institutes of Health doesn’t advocate its use. It isn’t included in UPMC’s COVID-19 remedy protocols.
He acquired his first dose on Dec. 5, two days after Vedder’s choice within the court case. After Keith acquired a second dose, the physician overseeing the drug’s administration – a doctor not affiliated with UPMC – ended the remedy as Keith’s situation deteriorated.
Darla had written beforehand that she was uncertain whether or not ivermectin may assist her husband, nevertheless it was value a attempt. The use of the drug was described as “a Hail Mary” meant as a last-ditch effort to save Keith’s life. (She wouldn’t say whether or not her husband had been vaccinated.)
She was indignant with UPMC for refusing to administer the remedy, forcing her to sue, and for delaying the remedy for 2 days because the hospital grappled with the that means of the court order whereas Darla organized to have an impartial nurse administer the drug. Citing privateness legal guidelines, UPMC had beforehand declined to disclose particulars of the case or Keith’s remedy.
She had type phrases for the nurses at UPMC, writing “I still love you.” She wrote, “You cared for Keith for over 21 days. You dosed him with the medicines the doctors prescribed. You cleaned him and groomed him, moved him, propped him up, dealt with every mess, every smell, every trial. Everything. I appreciate you.
“That’s all I’ll say about UPMC at this time,” she wrote. “You’re incredibly lucky to have the nurses you do, jackwads. Treat them better.”
An engineer, a Penn State fan and a Christian
Keith Smith was a structural engineer, a vice chairman of a agency headquartered in Lancaster. He was a graduate of Penn State and was an avid fan of the Nittany Lions soccer crew. He was lively, his wife stated, and loved woodworking and snowboarding.
And he was a religious Christian. His wife instructed a story about a journey to Baltimore. The household had handed a homeless man on the sidewalk, and as Darla and his sons walked forward, Keith stopped to communicate to him, and after listening to his story, gave the person some cash. Darla chastised him for it, saying the person was simply going to spend the cash on medication, however Keith instructed her he stated he wished one thing to eat, and Keith wished to assist him, a demonstration of his religion.
This picture of Darla and Keith Smith was hooked up as an exhibit in her lawsuit in opposition to UPMC Memorial.
“If heaven is indeed real, just as God should be real – but He chose to not reveal Himself, and I will never, ever in a million years understand why – then I know that Keith is at peace,” Darla wrote.
Her husband’s dying has shaken Darla’s religion.
“And God? Remains to be seen,” she wrote. “At the moment we are not on speaking terms and we may never be again. I don’t know. We are where we are.”
‘I need to erase all of this’
She had been in search of indicators. Earlier Sunday, she wrote, she was vacuuming when she noticed a pack of eight deer within the yard of her household’s residence within the Out Door Country Club space of Manchester Township. “It was weird,” she wrote, a sight she had by no means seen earlier than in her suburban neighborhood.
Later, she spoke to Keith’s dad and mom, who reside in South Carolina, and his mom instructed her that a gaggle of untamed turkeys had appeared of their yard earlier within the week. Keith’s mom additionally instructed her that a rose bloomed proper exterior a window, regardless of the temperatures dropping into the 20s at night time. “No one could explain why a massive rose would pop up like that and stubbornly stay in place and live,” she wrote. “We thought it was a sign. I thought a lot of things were signs.”
She wrote, “I don’t want to remember my husband in that awful bed with that monstrous tube stuck in his throat. I want to erase the IVs, the wires, the lines, the feeding tube. I want to erase all of this.”
She wrote that she had picked up a prescription for ivermectin the day earlier than Thanksgiving. “I could have given him the drug on the sly. Yes, they would have caught me.” She described making ready the drug in a sterilized Rubbermaid cup to sneak it into the hospital earlier than the court dominated on her lawsuit. “In the end, I didn’t do it,” she wrote. “And that will forever be a cloak of guilt that will cover me in shame.”
Instead, she wrote, “I waited for the stupid court order, a nine-day delay from the date I picked up the script in Paoli. Then, UPMC played nasty, vile, wicked games for two days and delayed further.”
She wrote, “The only thing keeping me upright is sheer hate and venom. Don’t lecture me – DO NOT. If you’ve been through this, you know precisely what this feels like. I hope it is momentary, but I’m pretty nasty when cornered, so don’t hold your breath. And, if you haven’t been through this, drop to your knees and thank GOD that He hasn’t dumped this on you. Thank your lucky freaking stars. But do NOT, ever, lecture me or judge me. There but for God’s grace go you. Trust me, you do not want this burden.”
She concluded, “My heart will always have a Keith-sized hole in it. It will never go away. I will miss him until the day I expire.”
Columnist/reporter Mike Argento has been a Daily Record staffer since 1982. Reach him at mike@ydr.com.
This article initially appeared on York Daily Record: Man who won a court battle to treat his COVID with ivermectin has died
