TOLEDO, Ohio — People around Toledo know Craig Snyder. He has been a radio personality for decades. Country music fans recognize the friendly, familiar voice from K-100.
In mid-March, he became a story for a different reason than his radio career. He became one of the area's earliest cases in the raging COVID-19 pandemic.
Gastrointestinal issues hit him "like a Mack truck."
He tested positive for the virus and was in Ann Arbor's Veterans Affairs hospital from March 14 to April, spending his birthday in the ICU.
Thirty-five to 40 percent of people who test positive from COVID are asymptomatic. Most of the others have mild symptoms. But COVID has been a vicious foe for patients with a history of heart conditions - and Snyder has a lengthy history of heart issues.
His oxygen levels dropped to dangerous levels.
"When did I know I was in trouble? When I was in the first corona area and they said they were going to put me in ICU on a ventilator - because I had been through that with heart surgery. I just thought, 'oh, crap.'"
He was right to be worried. His heart stopped, not for the first time in his life. For a month, he was in and out of consciousness, at one point waking in a delirious state, grabbing his phone, and calling the police to report sketchy people walking around his room.
This week, Ohio can clearly say that numbers are improving. The state's cases have dropped by 20 percent to an average of 1,074 a day. Hospitalized COVID-19 patients are down to 956, the lowest levels in almost a month.
Ohio averaged 23 deaths in the past week, down from 27 the week before. People reach out to me on a daily basis to say that the pandemic is overblown, that the falling death numbers are a sign that things are returning to normal.
Snyder doesn't want to hear it. He was in a COVID wing with people who became numbers for not surviving and he saw nurses break down when young people were put on ventilators.
He doesn't understand the minimizing of deaths.
"If that's your opinion about life and death, I feel sorry for you. That's someone's grandma, someone's son or daughter."