After Bettina Lerman spent weeks on a ventilator as she battled COVID-19, her family prepared for what they believed was the inevitable.
With doctors predicting Lerman, 69, wouldn’t recover, they bought a tombstone, started planning her funeral, and prepared to say an emotional goodbye.
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Lerman’s kids were so convinced their mother’s life was coming to an end they also gave away her possessions and let go of her Florida apartment.
“We … donated everything in her apartment for others in need at her senior community,” daughter Jennifer Miele said on a GoFundMe page. “We had already went to the funeral home and was planning her funeral, with the little bit she had left.”
Then, on Oct. 29 — right before they planned to remove Lerman from life support — something shocking unfolded at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine: she woke up.
Lerman’s son, Andrew, told CNN about the unbelievable phone call he received right before he expected his mom to die.
Bettina Lerman was on a ventilator for weeks after getting Covid-19 and hadn’t responded to efforts to wake her from a coma. Her family made the difficult decision to take her off of life support and picked out her casket and headstone. Then she woke up. https://t.co/en8Cgg6R4f
— CNN (@CNN) November 19, 2021
“[The doctor’s] like, ‘Well, I need you to come here right away.’ I was like, ‘OK, what’s wrong?'” Lerman recalled. “He goes, ‘Well, there’s nothing wrong. Your mother woke up.'”
One of the most remarkable parts of the story is what Andrew told CNN about his mother’s faith and the impact the medical marvel is having on his own perspective.
He said his mom is “very religious” and her church and friends have been praying for her.
“So they can’t explain it on the medical side. Maybe it’s on the religious side,” Andrew said. “I’m not that religious, but I’m starting to believe that there’s something that helped her. I don’t know.”
He added, “She’s a miracle.”
Andrew’s sister, Jennifer, also described their mother as a “prayer warrior.”
It is truly remarkable Lerman spent more than a month in a coma and is now awake and responsive. And while she’s not out of the woods, she is making strides toward recovery. She’s getting physical therapy to regain strength and is able to breathe on her own with supplemental oxygen, according to WMTV-TV.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help Lerman rebuild her life as she recovers.
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