Coronavirus: News anchor Anderson Cooper breaks down on air
CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper has broken down in tears after a healthcare worker revealed she hasn’t see her children in months as she faces having her hands amputated.
Rosa Felipe, who worked at the Jackson Memorial Hospital in the US state of Florida, was put on a ventilator at the same hospital after she contracted the coronavirus in March.
She had worked at the hospital for more than 15 years as an EEG technician, moving constantly around the hospital and seeing a number of patients prior to her diagnosis.
Suffering from both asthma and diabetes, Ms Felipe was at even more risk of complications from the coronavirus, and spent two months on a ventilator.
Speaking to CNN, the mother said she was preparing to die.
“I wrote on paper to my children that I wanted them not to give up, and not to be upset with God,” she said.
“Because if something were to happen to me, this was his will and I didn’t want them to be upset with God, I wanted them to be loving and happy that God allowed us to have the time that we did have.”
Ms Felipe now says she is grateful to be alive, however she developed blood clots while on the ventilator which now means she will likely lose fingers or have to have her hands amputated.
Starved of proper circulation and oxygen, Ms Felipe’s fingers have turned black.
“My fingers are going to fall off,” she told CNN.
News anchor breaks down in tears
At the end of the interview with CNN, Ms Felipe asked the reporter to congratulate news anchor Anderson Cooper on his new baby Wyatt.
She said she was happy to hear of the news after not having seen her own two children for five months.
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When Cooper heard Ms Felipe’s well wishes on-air, he teared up and wiped his eyes.
“Wow, what she has been through,” he said.
Reporter Randi Kaye told him it was the only time in their interview Ms Felipe smiled.
“She’s been in this dark place, she was on that ventilator a couple of months, she’s going through possibly losing her hands, she hasn’t seen her children in a couple of months,” Kaye said.
“She was in this dream-like state where she was watching her life go by on the ventilator, she remembers.
“So it’s been a really scary time for her and she hasn’t had any visitors so when we started talking about you that’s when she really lit up. She’s clung to that as sort of a bright spot in all of this.
“We see what the pandemic has done to her and her family and so many others and it was just really sweet.”
Cooper concluded the CNN story by saying he wanted to speak with Ms Felipe himself.
“We wish you the best and we hope she gets to be reunited with her kids really soon,” he said.
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