In an exclusive interview with RossDellenger, AFCA executive director Todd Berry and his wife, Lisa, detail his hospitalization earlier this year, when doctors said he had a 50-50 chance to live
“Coaching and being around football, you fight through things. There is a certain amount of pride that gets in the way. You don’t think you’re bulletproof, but you do have that mentality. I had to embrace something I didn’t think would come.”
Six weeks since he left the hospital, Berry is on the path to a full recovery. He’s been off regular oxygen since Feb. 15 and lost 30 pounds due to the coronavirus. He is also experiencing lingering effects, like mysterious numbness in his feet and fits of coughing.Berry believes he contracted the coronavirus the week before the AFCA coaches convention, which was held in San Antonio on Jan. 9–11.
At one point under light sedation, Berry recalls hearing medical staff discussing his prognosis, and the discussion wasn’t good. That’s when he began doing something no other patient had done in the ICU—he started to randomly raise his hand off the bed and into the air at various times.Lisa got to visit for an hour each day. Decked in mandatory protective gear, she prayed over her husband’s sedated body and at times read him scripture.
Lisa and Todd recently returned to the ICU unit to deliver gifts and snacks to the nurses and doctors who cared for him. Without them, he knows he would not be here right now, opening up to a reporter about the most grueling experience of his life. He acknowledges he experienced times of despair while on the ventilator and questioned whether he could fight any longer. “I thought about my girls and wife and that sort of thing,” he says.
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