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New Rochelle resident Lawrence Garbuz, who was the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Westchester, was interviewed on NBC-TV's TODAY on Monday, May 11, by Savannah Guthrie.
Garbuz, 50, said that he’s “thankful to be alive,” after contracting the virus in February and going into a coma for weeks. He said that he didn’t even realize it could be COVID-19 at the time.
"I just thought I had a cough," he said. "Look, I'm a lawyer. I sit at a desk all day.
"I think at the time we were sort of focusing (for COVID-19) on individuals who had maybe traveled internationally, something that I had not done. I had certainly not been to China.”
Garbuz contracted a fever, at which point he went to a doctor, who confirmed that it was COVID-19 after initially believing it was pneumonia. The attorney said that he still doesn’t know how he got sick.
After initially being treated at NewYork-Presbyterian Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville, Garbuz was transported to New York-Presbyterian Columbia Hospital in Manhattan with breathing troubles.
"We went to the hospital," he said. "After we entered the emergency room, I have absolutely no recollection of anything that transpired until I woke up from the coma. So it's as if three weeks of my life had completely disappeared, and I was asleep for all of it.”
Garbuz’s wife, Adrina, said that once the COVID-19 diagnosis was confirmed, she went to work with the state’s Department of Health to determine who her husband had come into contact with.
“I was on the phone through the night with various departments of health finding out what to do, and sharing everywhere we went,” she said, adding, “I didn’t want anybody else to get sick.”
Garbuz’s case of COVID-19 led to New Rochelle becoming one of the country’s first, and largest, hot spots for the virus.
It spread to his neighbor, who drove him to the hospital, and his neighbor's family. Medical staff at the hospitals, members of his law firm, and attendees at the Temple Young Israel of New Rochelle synagogue, where he attended religious events, also became confirmed as cases.
The outbreak caused New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to order a one-mile containment zone around the synagogue and close schools.
Since Garbuz’s diagnosis in early March, there have been 335,395 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 31,342 of them in Westchester, according to the New York State Department of Health. There have been 21,478 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in New York.
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