SOUTH PITTSBURG, Tenn.
South Pittsburg woman recovers from illness that paralyzed lungs
[snip]
It has been a year since she came home from the hospital after viral pneumonia paralyzed her lungs and nearly killed her.
She recovered after doctors put her on a extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine, known as ECMO, at Memorial Hospital. Lint was the first adult patient at Memorial to survive after being placed on the machine.
But she says she is grateful for every day and wants other people to know about the procedure that saved her life.
[snip]
A surgeon inserted a large flexible tube, about the size of a thumb, into the jugular vein in her neck. A pump in the machine oxygenated her blood and returned it to her body through another tube in her neck, allowing her lungs to rest and heal....
