WALLINGFORD, Conn. — They meet each week, three men in their mid-50’s who have battled back from COVID-19.
After Jay Bialkowski, Vic Gara, and Chris Bowery all survived COVID-19 they then rehabbed at Gaylord Hospital that’s where they have since joined a Covid support group that Gaylord set up.
This week, the three former patients were making their rounds at the Farms Country Club, taking their best shots and discussing their common bonds along the way.
Joining the survivors’ group was Jim Russo, Gaylord’s Community Relations Coordinator, who helped begin the survivors’ group. After hitting a drive on the 6th hole, Vic Gara, from West Granby, who spent 11 days in 2020 on a ventilator, said of the group, “it’s definably real and it humbles you, it brings you down to Earth.”
Jay Bialkowski, 55, from Glastonbury said, “We understand each other, we know what we went through this and its bond.”
Bialkowski spent 18 days in the ICU at Hartford Hospital on a ventilator before he turned the corner and was transferred to rehab at Gaylord.
He added that being in the survivors’ group is “an amazing feeling, it really is.” Chris Bowery, from East Hampton, who is 55 and spent three weeks at Middlesex Hospital before going to Gaylord said of his new friend group, “it’s a very unique bond that we have, I can’t explain it enough how these guys have touched my life.”
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