The doctors almost had to give up.
But after 129 days, the doctors at the Bogenhausen Clinic made it: Your patient survived Corona.
Munich - The corona numbers in Munich have been falling for weeks *.
In the intensive care units, however, there is still a bitter struggle for life and death.
A special device gives hope.
Munich: Bogenhausen Clinic creates Corona miracle - special device saves young man after 129 days of treatment
An ice cream in one hand, the cell phone in the other. In addition, the sun on your skin and a smile on your face. Martin K. (42, name changed) is overjoyed for good reason. After 70 days in the Munich * Klinik Bogenhausen, he was allowed outside again for the first time. He lies in bed and is connected to a so-called ECMO, a heart-lung machine. It saved his life. Otherwise he would probably not have survived the infection with the corona virus *.
"With the ECMO, in the case of acute lung failure, we primarily gain time in which the lungs can recover," explains Dr.
Michael Findeisen, Senior Physician at the Munich Clinic Harlaching.
The heart-lung machine does what the healthy lungs do outside of the body: enriching the blood with oxygen and removing carbon dioxide.
It is used when artificial ventilation with an oxygen device is no longer sufficient.
Despite special corona treatment: Doctors close to desperation - "But I didn't want to tell the young man ..."
But with Martin K. even the special device doesn't help at first.
After 30 days at the ECMO, his lungs are still destroyed.
The doctors are in despair.
It's actually time to quit, says senior physician Dr.
Markus Engel.
"But I didn't mean to tell this young man that we're giving him up."
So the doctors fight.
Day after day.
And indeed: the lungs recover.
Martin K. gets back on his feet.
After a total of 129 days of treatment in the clinic, he was allowed to go home last week.
Corona treatment in Munich: "The need for ECMO places has increased significantly again"
His fate is not an isolated incident. In the Munich Clinic, more than 20 patients have been treated at the ECMO so far. "The need for intensive care ECMO treatment places increased again significantly in the third wave of the pandemic," says Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU). The highs of the first and second wave of infections were 40 and 60 occupied ECMO places. Since the end of April, the number has been around 70 places across Bavaria. It is also noticeable that the patients are now mostly younger - often between 30 and 50 years old. Five ECMOs are currently in use in the Munich clinics. Another device has now been officially handed over.
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