MARYLAND. Patrick Bright, a 55-year-old Maryland man who spent more than a week on a ventilator while fighting the COVID-19 Coronavirus made it, the first patient in the Washington, D.C. area to receive a special plasma treatment.

It was donated by MedStar Georgetown Hospital Dr. Lambros Stamatakis, a specialist in urologic oncology at the Washington facility where Bright, a Federal Officer at the Pentagon, was treated for three weeks.

For nine of those days, he was on a ventilator. His family was told to start planning his funeral, WTOP reported, and them Stamatakis stepped up to save him. Stamatakis was born and raised in Ellicott City, Maryland, where he developed a passion for sports, fishing, and Greek culture.

Doctors, nurses and other staff lined the entrance of the hospital to cheer on Patrick Bright, 55, of Clinton, Maryland, as he was discharged. “There were times that I was in my hospital bed and I was just crying and praying to God to get me through this,” Bright said.

He improved after the first treatment of convalescent plasma therapy, raising hopes as a treatment based on antibodies from patients who recovered.