‘ICU Delirium’ Is Leaving COVID-19 Patients Scared and Confused
Barry Jones spent nearly a month in the ICU with COVID-19—including 15 days on a ventilator—but for part of that time, he thought he was somewhere else entirely.
“One day I was in D.C., the next I was in Chicago, riding motorcycles with friends of mine I hadn’t seen in years,” he told me last week, from his home in Boynton Beach, Florida. “I was putting my shoes on, walking out of the hospital to have barbecue and a beer,” Jones recalled. “I was all over the place. I was on a boat. I was going back to work. I was vividly, in my mind, doing things.”
Over FaceTime, Barry had told his longtime partner that a puppy was keeping him company, and that President Donald Trump had given him a tour of Mar-a-Lago. A Kia commercial played when he closed his eyes. He tried to escape and join his family for Easter Sunday. When he was put on a ventilator, Jones hallucinated that doctors glued plastic tubes directly into his lungs.
