Man hospitalized for 8 months survives COVID-19, returns home in time for Christmas

HOUSTON, Texas -- After spending eight months battling COVID-19 in Houston hospitals and even having to be placed on a ventilator, an international pilot is now back home just in time for Christmas.

Nicholas Synott, an international pilot based in the U.K. in London, is a COVID-19 miracle. Last March, on one of his regular trips to Houston, he caught the virus and was hospitalized at U.T. Health and Memorial Hermann Hospital.

Doctors tell our sister station, KTRK, they worked on Synott for months. They said he went into respiratory failure, was placed on a ventilator and then on a heart and lung machine.

"Every organ of his body was affected by COVID-19. But yet, because his health was so good as a pilot prior to the illness, he could sustain all this and survive something as serious as this," said UT Health Dr. Biswajit Kar. "We were firstly overwhelmed by the joy that someone this sick could make it."

Now, after eight months, Synott is back home in the United Kingdom. So how did he survive?

"There was always a question, 'Is he even in there?' Given the enormous number of the medications the other multi-organ issues that were happening," Memorial Hermann's Dr. Bindu Akkanti said. "I think all of us on our team agreed that it was his wife."

Synott's wife, Nicki, was at his bedside every day for nearly eight months.

"With the support of my wife, and the thought of going back to my kids. It was a tough journey but, we've got where we are," Synott said.

Next, the COVID-19 survivor says he'd like to return to Houston someday. He adds he wants to visit the Houston Zoo, which he said he saw every day out of his hospital window.

"I want to come back and I want to visit all my friends and I want to thank them in person for everything that they did for me," said Synott.