Ringside
AMANDA HUBER SHARED intimate details of Brodie Lee’s final two months and the desperate life-or-death struggle to save her husband. In an interview with Aubrey Edwards on the AEW Unrestricted podcast, Huber described how quickly a case of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis settled into Lee’s lungs, and how the fight seemed nearly insurmountable from the outset.
Huber explained that Lee had reported to Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida, for that night’s Dynamite, and, although the 6’5”, 275-pound star tested negative for COVID-19, AEW’s resident physician, Dr. Michael Sampson, noted that something didn’t seem right and recommended that he return home to quarantine and rest. Lee’s temperature rose to 102.9 degrees, and his wife urged him to visit the hospital. By that time, his oxygen level had decreased to 52. A normal oxygen level is 95 to 100, and a sick patient’s level is typically around 85.
Lee was placed under extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), basically a last-resort procedure that serves as dialysis for the lungs. Commonly, it pulls blood from the patient’s leg, the blood travels through a machine for oxygenation, and then the blood is pumped directly to the heart. Seeing her husband in that predicament was quite sobering.
Lee recovered briefly, was taken off the ventilator and the ECMO process, and received a tracheotomy so he could breathe directly through a tube.
