Las Vegas nurse makes ‘miraculous recovery’ from COVID-19

Southern Hills Hospital and Medical Center held a surprise party Tuesday for a nurse who survived COVID-19.

Bessy Angue, a nurse at MountainView Hospital, contracted the virus in March while she was treating patients. She received treatment in Southern Hills’ intensive care unit and was on a ventilator for two-and-a-half weeks.

The hospital said that Angue’s eyes weren’t tracking last week, but she made “a miraculous recovery” and was released Tuesday to the surprise celebration.

Angue was greeted at the entrance by hospital administrators, her family, colleagues and members of the care team that treated her. She smiled when presented with flowers and brought past a line of supporters with balloons and pompoms.

“Oh, my goodness. I just said, ‘Wow, is this for me?’ ” Angue said of the moment she saw people gathered to support her. “I’m just very appreciative of everyone.”

Angue said that despite working with sick patients during the pandemic, she never thought she would contract the virus. Her son, Roger Palmiano, said he was shocked to see how sick she got because she took all the necessary precautions recommended for nurses.

“They were like, ‘You’ve got to be like suited up and have your gloves on all the time,’ so that whole time she was suited up,” Palmiano said. “For her to get it, it was just like, how could she have gotten it when she was already protected.”

Angue’s fiance, Cedric Monsanto, said she started experiencing flu-like symptoms on March 17, and her health rapidly deteriorated before she was tested for COVID-19 on March 23. By March 25, he said, her shortness of breath was worsening and the family took her to the emergency room.

“When I first dropped her off here, I think her body finally gave out on her. Maybe because she was in the hospital she realized it was time to stop fighting,” Monsanto said. “She was kind of passed out while standing up, kind of leaned on me, and they took her in and that was the last time I saw her outside the hospital before today.”

For a while, he said, they weren’t sure she was going to make it, but “she did a complete 180 after they took out her breathing tube” on April 7.

He said he was the first person to see her when she woke up, the day after the tube was removed.

“They did the test of, ‘Do you know who you are? Do you know who this is?’ And she knew it was me,” Monsanto said. “The very next day, Roger FaceTimed her with the whole family, and it seems like since that day she just punched through that wall and had an amazingly fierce recovery.”

‘Live life all over again’

Monsanto said he hopes people take the pandemic seriously, even if they don’t think they are at risk of contracting the virus.

“Going through what we went through these last three weeks, you can’t wish that on anybody,” he said. “And if you can prevent spreading that to one person, I believe that’s a worthwhile gesture; it’s an obligation.”

On her plans for going home, Angue said she wants to sleep for a few days and “start to live life all over again, start to rebuild (her) body all over again.”

Monsanto said Angue didn’t celebrate her birthday on March 21, so once she’s feeling better, the family will likely host a FaceTime party to celebrate her birthday and her health.

Angue’s smile never left as she saw the celebration for her outside the hospital Tuesday.

“Just to open my eyes and find out that I’m still alive was fantastic,” Angue said. “I’m just so grateful to everyone here.”

Contact Alexis Egeland at aegeland@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0335. Follow @alexis_egeland on Twitter.