Survival Story: Nurse leaves Long Beach hospital after 8 months as a COVID-19 patient

LONG BEACH, California (KABC) – It was a day that a local nurse thought would never come.

After nearly dead several times during eight months of treatment for the coronavirus, Merlin Pambuan walked out of hospital on Monday.

Pambuan was not only a patient at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, but had worked as a nurse there for 40 years.

Doctors say she was nearly dead several times and underwent painful physical therapy to be able to stand again, but she made it.

The hospital staff cheered when she finally left home.

She had advice for other patients struggling with COVID-19: “Just fight. Fight. Because look at me, I’m going home and I’m walking.”