Richard had been hospitalized since October 2021 in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Max Peralta Hospital in Cartago, Costa Rica, due to this potentially fatal condition, which causes a significant alteration in gas exchange in the lungs.

Saul Rodriguez, one of the hospital’s intensive care physicians, commented that the patient’s pulmonary function was totally invalidated (he lost the capacity to transfer gases), so he required extracorporeal support devices to be oxygenated, remove carbon dioxide and maintain vital functions.

The pulmonary damage was such, Rodriguez recalled, that even with the mechanical ventilator turned off, the patient developed pneumothorax, which means that the lung “deflates,” a complication that required surgical intervention with support of surgeons from the capital’s Calderon Guardia Hospital.

The doctor recalled that Richard contracted Covid-19 in October and after several days not responding to medication, with agitation and very low oxygen saturation, he decided to go to hospital, was hospitalized and although the family believed that it was something mild, because he was a healthy person, he had to stay there for a long time.

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