Coronavirus Survivor Leaves Hospital On Granddaughter's Birthday

ASTORIA, QUEENS — A 75-year-old Queens woman diagnosed with COVID-19 made it off a ventilator and out of the hospital in time for her granddaughter's birthday.

Woodside resident Sonia Ateh had been recovering from a broken hip at a local rehab center when she showed up at the Mount Sinai Queens emergency room on April 9 with shortness of breath and a fever, hospital officials said.

Doctors intubated her that day and kept her on a ventilator in intensive care for more than a week.

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"She could barely breathe," Dr. Meir Cohen, an attending family medicine physician at Mount Sinai Queens, said. "We kept giving her oxygen at higher and higher levels."

Ateh made it off the ventilator on April 17 and continued recovering. The hospital discharged her Tuesday, the same day her youngest granddaughter turned six.

"Thanks for everybody that saved my life," Atieh said Tuesday. "I'm going home today."

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