Nov. 2, 2020
EAST HAVEN, CT — "Just let me go," John Ormond told his daughter on the phone.
"When he said, 'Just let me go,' I knew it was out of desperation," said Savonna Ormond, the assistant director of nursing for Whispering Pines Rehabilitation and Nursing Center. "I knew it was him suffering at the moment. I knew it wasn't about anything else. You know when you're in those situations, it's easy to give up. But I wasn't giving up on him."
And, it turns out, he was not ready to either. He had a lot to live for. And so, for more than four months, he fought to stay alive, with help from doctors and nurses at Yale New Haven Hospital's St. Raphael campus.