“I was driving into Hinton for a haircut and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. It was startling, very startling. It hits you and there’s nothing you can do, you’re just at its mercy. It took my breath, I could not breathe, I could not breathe at all. I drove myself to the hospital. I thought it was just a respiratory issue, but it was COVID-19, and it was terrible!”
For the first time in six weeks, Summers County Commissioner Bill Lightner shared the story of talk of his near-death experience.
Just after losing his race for another term on the Summers County Commission Lightner fell into the clutches of the potentially fatal virus sweeping the nation.
“I’m going to tell everyone facts,” Lightner shared. “It’s awful.”
Hearing that cases are up 91% since Halloween, Lightner stated his worry that “people aren’t taking every precaution to avoid killing themselves or their loved ones with this horrible virus. It’s just awful.”
Now in his sixth week of suffering from pneumonia, Lightner said, “I have always been a strong person, but over the past few weeks I have lost 20 pounds, I could only eat a little bit. Nothing tastes good and I’m so weak I can hardly pick my feet up. It takes all your strength.”
Lightner suffers from sarcoidosis. It’s a prevalent disorder commonly seen in German ancestry. He explained it’s a condition of misplaced cells and settles in organs like eyes and lungs. The sarcoidosis made him particularly vulnerable to the virus.
This specific coronavirus has a keenly focused attraction for lungs. Betty Lightner, his wife, also contracted the virus and was very sick for a couple of weeks but with completely different symptoms. Two weeks down, two weeks recuperating, and still, Lightner says, Betty is sore and weak. He regrets during that time he couldn’t be home to care for her as he was clinging onto life in a hospital, first in Summers County and then in Morgantown. Now home, Lightner claimed he is improving, though slowly, and is adhering to a schedule of four breathing treatments a day.
As Lightner shared his experience he recalled the first several days in the hospital were really tough.
“I couldn’t breathe, my air was shut off. I was put on two liters of oxygen, then raised to four and then to six liters. At that point, I learned, gas started going the other way, like COPD. My body was retaining too much of the gases,” Lightner said, putting him into COPD, he explained, and that created another life-threatening situation.
He needed to be moved to another hospital but there were no beds available. Surprisingly, a contact of his son’s in Senator Joe Manchin’s office learned of Lightner’s healthcare predicament and helped locate a spot for him in Morgantown.
“Next day a room opened to me. I was flown up to Morgantown and five people were there ready to receive me. There I was immediately weaned off oxygen, received the same expensive experimental drug the president received, and 5 to 6 hours later I was off oxygen, talking, and treated royally with intravenous antibiotics and steroids,” Lightner said.
The medical ordeal lasted from Nov. 5 through mid-November.
“The senator called when I got home and asked if he could do anything. His kindness was very appreciated,” Lightner said.
Commissioner Lightner, whose term on the commission ends in January, says his faith in God and divine intervention saved his life, not once but twice during the past year. He credits God with the call he had received from Senator Manchin’s assistant Mara Boggs after Lightner lost the November election to Republican Michael Gore. Thanks to that phone call Dr. Clay Marsh may have been the guide to a room in the Morgantown hospital.
“God saved me from cancer earlier in the year. I am cancer-free, didn’t need radiation or chemotherapy. God is the answer. He gives doctors the touch to save you. He has the divine hand. He leads the doctors and gives them the will,” Lightner said.
As Lightner shared more details about his journey back from COVID-19 he said he really wanted to share that “All my life God has carried me. Betty was my school sweetheart and we’ve shared a wonderful and long marriage. Everything I have ever done has been successful, business, whatever I have attempted was successful. There was a reason why I lost re-election to another term on the county commission. It was God’s doing. Now I intend to spend the rest of my life working on my farms and the land. In the spring I hope to have two knee replacements. On my way out of political office, I was named Democrat of the Year. Today I am grateful my wife, my son and family are recovering from COVID-19.”
And as he and his family members regain strength, he has made it clear how very blessed he is feeling on the other side of this debilitating viral experience.
