A Dallas firefighter who is currently intubated in the hospital and battling COVID-19 is in need of prayers, according to family, as his third child is expected to arrive any day now.
Quinton “Q” Tillman is hospitalized and is in the intensive care unit of Medical City Denton according to his wife, Natassia, who is just three weeks away from giving birth to their third child, NBCDFW.com reported.
“It’s our ‘surprise baby,’ so it’s our tie-breaker. We have a boy and a girl, so we’re just hoping for a healthy baby,” Natassia said.
Natassia hopes that Quinton will be healthy and present when the baby arrives.
“We’re just praying that he comes through. He’s on 50% ventilator oxygen and that’s kind of his happy place so, we’re just hoping he can just keep fighting through,” she said. “It’s literally hour by hour.”
Quinton is a firefighter and paramedic at Dallas Fire-Rescue’s Station 1. He is also a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq.
Last Saturday, the family had a baby shower and according to Natassia, her husband started feeling ill the following day. “He was feeling sick and then overnight really, he was ready to go to the hospital,” she said. “By the afternoon, they were saying he had hours to live unless he was intubated.”
Tillman has COVID-19 multifocal pneumonia, where pneumonia affects more than one area of the lungs.
Natassia said that Quinton chose not to get COVID-19 vaccine. “I think that he has a strong Christian belief that he doesn’t want to do the vaccine. That’s been kind of his speech to everyone that with the vitamins and the minerals and all of that, that he could get through it,” she said.
But Natassia emphasized that her husband took the virus seriously and guaranteed safety to his family since the start of the pandemic.
According to Dallas Firefighter Association, 60Z% of their workforce are already vaccinated. At present, 683 firefighters have tested positive for COVID-19, and over a dozen have been hospitalized. One firefighter has succumbed to the virus.
According to union president Jim McDade, there are three firefighters who are currently in the hospital due to the virus.
McDade also said that most of the members in their department who got infected with the virus have fully recovered. But, there is constant concern over a few of their colleagues who are still struggling with long-term effects of the virus.
“Lung damage, to other systems that have been impaired. Kidney damage and things like that. And as of right now, doctors aren’t even 100% sure of what sort of function will come back,” said McDade.
The union is also monitoring closely all studies that are looking into the long-term impacts of the COVID19 virus on firefighters who are considered high risk for health problems.
Firefighters who survived the virus have additional requirements to be able to return to work. “We don’t want to have anybody not be able to be released because of the long-term effects from COVID-19,” said McDade. “And then, who knows what happens in a year or two?”
Quinton has a 6 years old son and a 12 years old daughter and his family is asking for prayers. According to Natassia, her husband’s last words before he got intubated is “for everybody to pray.”
