DePue man seeks lung transplant after COVID-19 damage

Family has set up a GoFundMe page, continues to seek help from a transplant center

A lung transplant is a 57-year-old DePue man’s hope for survival after his lungs were damaged by COVID-19.

Jaime Serrano’s family has set up a GoFundMe page, and they are hoping he will be able to get the transplant.

Serrano was first diagnosed with COVID-19 in early January. He dealt with mild symptoms, his daughter said, but then went into St. Margaret’s-Peru a few days later, because his oxygen level dropped. He continued to get worse and was transferred to OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria, where he remains.

Serrano no longer has COVID-19 and he’s no longer sedated, but the virus has done so much damage to his lungs that they are now considered necrotic, or dead lungs, his daughter said.

He is on a ventilator and a life support machine.

His daughter said the family’s plan is to find a transplant center that will accept Serrano as a possible candidate. Doctors at OSF reached out to four different facilities, and even though the family said they were close to a transfer, none of them were successful.

The hospital has told Serrano’s family that nothing more can be done for him other than to disconnect the life support machine. His family wants to continue treatment and keep reaching out to transplant centers in the hopes that someone will accept Serrano as a candidate. The hospital’s ethics team is reviewing both sides.

“We continue to hope that my dad will receive his lung transplant so any funds collected will go towards medical expenses,” Viridiana Garcia said. “We hope not to have to get a legal team involved, but if it comes to it, funds will also go toward legal fees.”

The GoFundMe page already has had 164 donors pitch in $12,227 toward a $20,000 goal, as of Wednesday night. The GoFundMe can be accessed at www.gofundme.com/f/jaimes-fight-to-live?qid=8b1502c1da003bd2f8a2ff6a0afe6e42.