Meet the Florida coach who fought COVID-19 and now he has a message for everyone who hasn’t been vaccinated

Orlando (CNN) – As Terry Greear looked at his selfie, in which he appeared with an oxygen mask on his first night in the hospital with covid-19, he relived the fear he felt that day.

“I was very scared,” Greear said.

He did not understand what was happening to him. He was a 42-year-old elementary school coach, athletic and healthy. And now she had trouble breathing, she had a fever, and her fingers had turned blue. On his mind were his two children, Matthew, 16, and Ryan, 12, and his wife, Stephanie.

Describing those moments recently, Stephanie Greear broke down in tears. In the emergency room, he had feared the worst, he recalled.

“I kept thinking, ‘Oh my gosh. What if this is the last time (their kids) see their dad?” Stephanie said.

That was the beginning of a 72-day battle against COVID-19 for the Greear family. Terry says he doesn’t remember many details because his condition deteriorated rapidly. But moments of agony are forever etched in Stephanie’s mind. That night she became the mother and father of her children.

Meanwhile, Terry was fighting for his life.

Terry Greear took this selfie on the first day of his 72-day hospital battle with COVID-19.

“She’s a superhero,” Terry said. “She was my superhero.”

This family wants to share their roller coaster of pain, they told CNN, to try to prevent others from experiencing the kind of agony they endured, especially when the average daily coronavirus cases has increased eightfold in Florida in the past month, according to a CNN analysis of Johns Hopkins University data.

The Greear Family Message: get vaccinated.

“God … please save him”

It was mid-January 2021. The Greears, who are die-hard Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans, were hoping the Bucs would make it to the Super Bowl. And Terry and Stephanie were looking forward to doing something fun and exciting for their 20th anniversary. The family was taking precautions against covid-19, and both parents planned to get vaccinated as soon as it was available for 40-year-olds like them.

But one night Terry, who is known as Coach Beard because one of his kindergarten students had trouble pronouncing Greear, was heading out the door to attend a high school football game when he felt sick.

“I was not feeling well,” he recalls. “My body felt warm.”

Terry had a fever, he said, so he stayed home and the next day he had the covid-19 test. The result was positive.

“You’re going to be fine,” Stephanie remembers telling Terry. “You are going to be sick for seven to ten days. You are going to be fine.”

But within days, the healthy 42-year-old elementary school coach passed out, his fingers turned blue, and he was rushed to the emergency room. Later it was transferred to the intensive care unit.

Every time Stephanie’s phone rang, she panicked, not knowing what kind of news awaited her on the other end of the line, she said.

“I held my breath the whole time,” Stephanie said. “I never knew what they were going to tell me.”

Terry Greear’s iconic beard was shaved off at the hospital. He lost 22 kilos.

The worst phone call came at 5 a.m. on January 24, when she learned that her husband I was going to be intubated and put into an induced coma, he said.

“It was the worst call I’ve ever gotten in my life. I couldn’t believe what happened,” Stephanie said. “I asked the doctors and nurses if he could hear me. She (the doctor) said, ‘Go talk to him. He may hear you. We don’t know.’

Stephanie remembers the sounds of the machines around her. He burst into tears describing how he prayed over his body and then played his favorite music, reggae rock, hoping it would drown out the sounds of the machines.

“I asked God to save him,” Stephanie said.

“I don’t remember because I was unconscious”

Students and staff decorated Terry’s school office with posters that read: “♥ ️ Coach Beard”, “We miss you” and “The best coach ever!”

PE teachers designed “#CoachBeard” T-shirts for everyone to wear.

And Stephanie filled her hospital room with photos of family and friends. He wanted the doctors and nurses to know that he was a teacher, a father and a husband and that they loved him, he said.

Terry Greear remembers seeing this poster with photos of friends and family when he regained consciousness.

“Every time I came to, or woke up, I would see photos, and the first photo that I saw was this heart that says ‘We love you,'” Terry said. “That gave me a bit of relief. Knowing that they are not physically there but that I can see them.”

As days and weeks passed, Greear’s iconic beard was shaved off. He lost 22 kilos. His lungs collapsed twice.

They put a respirator, a feeding tube, and a lung bypass machine.

“I don’t remember because I was unconscious,” he said.

The victory of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the Super Bowl. He missed the 20th anniversary he had been waiting for so much. The memories of his 43rd birthday are very rare: partial memories of the balloons that his wife claims to have delivered to his hospital room.

But Stephanie remembers each of the twists and turns in her condition, especially when she felt she had to explain to her children the severity of Terry’s illness.

“The worst thing was telling my kids that their father might not come home. And to think that they couldn’t even say goodbye to him,” Stephanie said, tears in her eyes. “It was tough. And he is my life partner. It was unimaginable for me to think about going on in life without him.”

Stephanie Greear wears her husband’s wedding ring around her neck as he fights COVID-19.

‘I had to start fighting’

Terry had to psych himself up to fight covid-19. He credits Stephanie with helping him bring out his competitive instincts and bringing him back into the fight.

“My wife told me, ‘You have to do this,'” Terry said. “Something prompted me to start fighting. And I fought a lot.”

After about two months, it took a 180 degree turn. Terry was beating COVID-19, but now his body was so weak that he couldn’t do basic tasks.

“Trying to put a sock on with both hands was impossible. There was no way I could do it,” Terry said. “My brain was saying: This is what you should do. But my body was telling me: No, you can’t.”

Terry entered an intensive rehab program in which he relearned basic tasks such as dressing, washing dishes, walking and getting in and out of the car, he said.

“I want to do normal things,” Terry said.

But coming home from the hospital was anything but normal. It depended on an oxygen tank and a walker. The walk from her front door to the mailbox was exhausting, she said, and she had to sit back, rest, and check her oxygen levels.

The Greear family wears their #CoachBeard t-shirts after Terry Greear defeated the coronavirus.

“Get vaccinated”

Today, Terry’s beard is back and the oxygen machine is gone. He passed the walker to his grandmother. And while you can take a walk around the block without being out of breath and even play a little basketball, it doesn’t feel like 100%.

“I want to go for a run, but I’m scared to go for a run,” Greear said. “I’m still waiting to find out how my lungs are doing right now.”

His goal is to run a 5K in November.

Little by little, he and his family try to make up for lost time, the 72 days he spent in the hospital. To relive the moment the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl, they held a Super Bowl party at home. Reliving his 20-year anniversary will have to wait, Terry said, until he feels better.

But there is something that does not have to wait, he said. It is a message that he has for everyone who wants to hear:

“Get vaccinated,” Terry said. “I don’t want anyone else’s family to have to go through what my family went through. Nobody’s wife or husband has to tell their children that mom or dad may not come home.”

1 thought on “Meet the Florida coach who fought COVID-19 and now he has a message for everyone who hasn’t been vaccinated”

Comments are closed.