9-23
Last month, a team of doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals at Lawrence General Hospital feverishly worked around the clock for more than a week to save the life and stabilize the vital signs of our Valley Patriot publisher Tom Duggan.
While we are holding onto the details of why and how this all happened for a full story in next month’s newspaper, (SEE BELOW!) the editorial board of The Valley Patriot could not let this edition go to print without showing our profound gratitude for the multiple miracles these brave men and women were able to pull off over the first nine days Duggan struggled in a coma and on a ventilator in the intensive care unit of the LGH.
Tom, himself wanted us to report that once he was transferred out of ICU and went into a regular room (in the Hamblet building) of LGH, the nurses and doctors continued to provide what he called “a far superior level of care and professionalism” than he ever expected.
“At first, I thought they were giving me the VIP treatment because I thought, maybe they knew who I was, or that I work in the media, so they were stepping up their game,” Duggan said.
“But, after being in the hospital for more than 21 days I came to realize that they just treated everyone this way – and that made me feel really good about the professional care the patients at Lawrence General were getting on a daily basis.”
As a side note, Duggan said that a large part of his recovery was the quality of the food at LGH.
“Before all this happened, I used to eat one big meal a day, but the food here was so damn good it was like getting restaurant food for every meal. I actually looked forward to the three daily meals I was getting. Every day it was extreme comfort food for me no matter what the menu item was, because the quality of the food was really something special.”
“I know that sounds a little crazy to hear that hospital food was that good, but I can say unequivocally that the quality of the food at LGH was a really big part of why I recovered faster than my family expected, and why I went to rehab in much better shape than anyone expected.”
We at the Valley Patriot prayed very hard during those early days Duggan’s life was in jeopardy and we worked even harder to keep this information off of social media and away from the public, until he was out of the woods and in recovery mode.
Most people – even among his close friends and family – didn’t even know Duggan was ill until the day he posted on Facebook that he was being discharged from the hospital and on his way to rehab.
We now want Tom’s friends and loyal readers to know that we did this on purpose because these were Tom’s wishes.
As most of you who regularly read this newspaper already know, there are some very powerful, very corrupt politicians, judges, and businessmen in the Merrimack Valley who have taken every opportunity they could to try and have this newspaper shut down to silence Duggan from exposing their graft and illegal activities.
For those people to find out early on that Duggan was struggling to survive would have provided the perfect opportunity to start another boycott, or manufacture another bogus scandal, to try and get advertisers to stop supporting the paper.
And with Tom unable to fight off such attacks because of his coma, it could have been the end of this newspaper. We just could not let that happen.
BELOW: What the heroes of Lawrence General faced when Tom Duggan was brought to their doorstep in the middle of the night. ◊
The Heroes at Lawrence General Hospital ~ Performing One Miracle After Another