We're Out of Time - The First COVID Patient in Burbank: Gregg Garfield’s Fight to Survive

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

On this episode of We’re Out Of Time, host Richard Taite sits down with COVID survivor Gregg Garfield to share one of the most extraordinary survival stories from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.Gregg recounts the moment everything changed while on a ski trip in the Italian Alps—when a warning call from his girlfriend first mentioned a mysterious virus spreading through Europe. Within days, flu-like symptoms spread through the group, and soon after returning to Los Angeles, Gregg tested positive. At the time, hospitals were unprepared for the virus, and he became the first COVID patient admitted to Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank.Doctors told Gregg he had only a 1% chance of survival. After being placed into a medically induced coma and spending 31 days on a ventilator, he endured a cascade of life-threatening complications including sepsis, collapsed lungs, blood clots, and organ failure. Gregg flatlined multiple times and says doctors still cannot explain why he survived.When he finally woke up, the battle was far from over. Gregg had lost most of his fingers and several toes due to the life-saving treatments that kept blood flowing to his vital organs. He had to relearn how to walk, eat, and rebuild muscle after losing over 50 pounds during his hospitalization.Through the darkest moments, Gregg credits the strength of his “village”—friends, family, and his partner AJ—for giving him the motivation to fight through recovery. With the support of hundreds of loved ones rallying around him, Gregg set small, achievable goals that eventually led to an incredible milestone: getting back on skis the very same year he nearly died.Today, Gregg channels his second chance at life into purpose-driven work through Gregg’s Village and ChipIn, initiatives dedicated to supporting nonprofits and building community through giving.This powerful conversation explores resilience, mindset, gratitude, and the life-changing realization that the people around you can make all the difference when the unthinkable happens.

When I checked in the morning of the fifth, it took them 15 minutes to gear up, which is full suits, hazmat gear, the whole nine. Just to come see you. Just to walk in the room to address whatever I was going on with me. So I co-deal. I'm done if they weren't ready. If someone has a problem with substance use disorder, please call one call placement. That's 8888-8-1-1581.

And if we can't help you, we'll make a referral to, someone who can. One call placement is affiliated with Carrera Treatment, Wellness, and Spa, and One Method Treatment Centers. Today's guest on the show is Greg Garfield. He was patient zero at the very beginning of COVID. But to open the show today, I just wanted to say one thing about the anniversary of COVID coming up, you know, at six years now. There is no anniversary. But the anniversary in my mind is March 11th. And that's because there was a guy by the name of Adam Silver that saved thousands and thousands of lives on that day. He's the commissioner of the National Basketball Association. And he halted the league on March 11th. What followed was

every university, every sports league, the whole world shut down. He saved thousands and thousands of lives. And let's not rewrite history. Although the variants got weaker and weaker and weaker. And today we'd rather have COVID than a bee sting. Okay. It wasn't that way at the beginning. The first variant was killing everybody.

And anyway, thank you, Adam Silver. All right, let's get going. In 2020, Greg Garvey. Fulfield was the first COVID patient at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank, California. Doctor said he had a 1% chance to live. He spent a month on a ventilator, over 60 days in the hospital, lost most of his fingers and toes, and still got back on skis that same year. Greg built Greg's village and runs Chippin, giving back to nonprofits with every transaction. Today we talk survival. mindset and building your team before the storm.

What's up, Greg? How are you, bud? Yeah. So a little transparency, right? Greg and I went to high school together. And you're a very fit guy. Like, I look fit, okay? But if I walk up two flights of stairs, I'm gassed, right?

You're doing double diamond runs, you know, skiing. half the year, traveling all over the world to do it. So your lungs are like iron lungs. So when you were on a ventilator, everyone who knows you, right? Me, Adam, Christ, everybody scared to death. Because if it's putting you on a ventilator, we're all dead. Right? And this is the very first COVID case in L.A. Correct. Right? So you went with a bunch of buddies to the Italian Alps. Tell me about the story and how it happened. Just lay it all out for me.

Yeah. So every year we go on a guy's trip. It's put on by my friend's dad. And 13 guys were this trip. It's the second time going back to Val Gardena, Italy skiing, the Dolomites. Always really excited to do that. We got there on 15. February 22nd, 2020, and I got a call from AJ and my girlfriend at the time, now my fiance,

I get a call from AJ and she says, are you aware of this thing called the coronavirus? It's where you are in Italy. Like, hi, you know, we're not worried about it. We're all athletes. You know, we're outdoors. We're specifically around us breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So we really have too much of a worry. So I said, she goes, be careful, keep an eye out. And it turns out three days in, we all start getting flu-like symptoms. So I was a little sicker than a couple of the other guys. I laid up in my room for a couple days. And specifically because I was supposed to come back on March 1st and then I'm leaving on the 4th for helicopter skiing trap.

So I wanted to get better. and three of the guys that live in Sweden went home a couple days early. One guy checked into the hospital and was set home with the flu, so we supposedly had the flu at this point. So we weren't worried about it. So we're leaving Valgardine or leaving Italy through Munich. The night before we hop on a plane, our friend Peter checked into the hospital the night before. Hold on.

I just want to, so you guys went from this place to that place. You guys basically infected the entire planet. not no no sorry not really we the great part

about what happened as we were very isolated and so the virus was transferring from all these people from the Chinese

came into Italy on you know from I believe from the uh the uh...

Bishmanta business right and by the happy new year happy new year so it was going around but nobody really had

any idea of exactly what this was. So in Munich my friend Peter checked into the hospital the night we were the night before we were leaving for back to LA. So we wake up in the morning we heard he checked into the hospital with double pneumonia

he misses our flight. So three quarters of the way through the flight. By the way, when we got on the plane there was no worry whatsoever. There was nobody checking people or anything It was way before anything was wrong. This was in January. February. February.

This was actually February 29th. February, oh, wow. So this is right before because didn't Adam Silver postpone the NBA season, I think, on March 11th or March 13th or March 11th, I remember. Yeah, that guy saved millions of lives. Go on. Absolutely. So we're, so the morning of the first, we're leaving. I'm sorry.

millions. He saved countless lives that will never know how many he saved. But that, remember when he did that and then college football was, was postponed and this one was postponed. And, you know, he's the one that that had the intestinal fortitude to stop that thing. At that particular time, I was in a coma. So I had no idea what was going on there. Okay, we're going to get to the coma. So back to Munich. So we get on the flight, three quarters of the way, through the flight, we get a text message from Peter saying that he tested positive for COVID. So we're about three quarters away through the flight about to land in L.A. And everyone on the plane's infected. It's not your fault, too.

Who knows? Right. I mean, who knows what's going on. Right. We're all sick. Right. They, we land, get off the plane. I called AJ, don't come to my house, obviously. I call my doctor who called the CDC. They sent a hazmat team to my house. Picked me. uptook me to their office in becoyma there was no random testing back then tested me 24 hours later i tested positive uh quarantined myself in the house uh that was on march 2nd march 4th i was on the phone of the buddy of mine who called another friend that's a retired physician because i was out of my mind i didn't i'm that person that knows all the details and he was asking me he goes who picked you up i don't know where did they where did you go who was testing you

blah, blah, blah. So you couldn't think. I was so bravefogged. It was crazy. I just didn't have any understanding really what was going on. And he said to me, he goes, dude, you need to go to the hospital. And I was pushing back. So he gets my friend on the phone, our friend, John, the physician. And he started calling around to all the hospitals, UCLA, Cedars, St. John's. Nobody would take you. Nobody would take it. They said, go to the emergency room, but out ready for a COVID patient. St. Joe's and Burbank was the only one. Well, if you go to the emergency room, I'm COVID positive. You infect everybody.

So that wasn't an option. That's right. So St. Joe's in Burbank was the only hospital ready with an inflow route. With a what? An inflow route. It's a sealed room. You go in when I checked in the morning of the 5th. It took them 15 minutes to gear up, which is full suits,

hazmat gear, the whole nine years. Just to come see you. Just to walk in the room. to address whatever I was going on with me. So if I code it, I'm done if they weren't ready. So it was a pretty easy. Tell what's coded? Flatline.

Okay. So if you flatline before they were dressed, you're finished. I'm done. Got it. Okay. So you can't, you were, how long were you in Italy from what date to what date? So we were there the 22nd to the 29th. Okay.

Or came back on the first. Okay. So, but the 29th you had it because you were sick. I was half. Like mid, mid. Give me the date roughly. 25th, 26. Okay.

So if you're from the 25th, you've got five and then you came in on the fifth. I got into the hospital on March 5th. Okay. So that's 10 days in. So you're suffering from 10 days and you're not yet on a ventilator. Nope. I got put on a ventilator. So I got admitted to the hospital on the 5th.

On Mark 7th, they what came in and said, your oxygen saturation is so low, we have to intubate you. I have no idea what that means. Me neither. At a particular time. Me neither. So I call AJ and said, I'm going to be offline for a couple days. And at that point, I...

That's all you told her. Oh, that's all I knew. And I went into a medically induced coma for the next 31 days. And everything under the sign happened to me from Mercer, a sepsis, a pulmonary embolism, ARDS, which is acute respiratory distress syndrome. I had blood clots throughout my body. I had collapsed lungs four different times. I was two days shy on going on ECMO, which is an iron lung. I was in band shape. I should not be here, medically speaking. And today, they literally don't know why I survived.

So on that, prior to that 48 hours, that next day, they had a, a media. they brought the family in and they said if he doesn't change in 24 hours within 24 hours you will probably want to start saying your goodbye is right now and on that next day everything started turning and I started getting better and they have no concept of why so for firmly I believe it's number one because I'm I was a very incredibly healthy person what did re-entry feel like? Let me see your hands first. Okay.

You didn't lose some of them. You lost parts of all of them. I lost all my fingers on my right hand, half my thumb, and half the fingers on my left hand, and just the tip of my thumb. So at your middle knuckle, that's where I lost all the fingers.

Of this, too, baby. Yeah, that's the middle knuckle. That's the middle knuckle. So you lost the knuckles. What happened with this, As I had, once I got out of the hospital, I was put on what they call pressers, which forces your blood to your motor organs for survival. So I was also, I had organ failure.

I was put on 24th of dialysis. My kidneys were failing. I was in batching, without a doubt. So they put me on pressors. It forces your blood to your vital organs for survival, compromises your extremities. My fingers went black. A couple of my toes went black. They were more worried about saving my life than saving my fingers and toes.

For sure. Made the right decision. Of course. Not it out. So coming out of the hospital, I then went to a couple specialists, a couple hand surgeons to really figure out of exactly what was going on. And the guy that we chose is a doctor, Dr. David Calder out of Cedars, amazing, amazing hand surgeon. And he said to me, he goes, we're going to go in. was going to check it out and save whatever we can and take off whatever's dead.

So I had, I challenged him to say, I need to be back on skis by the end of 2020. And he thought I was bad shit nuts. I was barely able to walk when I got out of the hospital. Right. I had to learn how to eat, chew, swallow. Why? Why? Because you were on the incubator for so long?

I was on, I was intubated for 31. one days, I lost over 50 pounds. Everything atrophied. So I went in at 197. I came out at 147. I looked like a kid from Auschwitz. Right. I could barely, when I was going through physical therapy,

I was able to only walk three steps. That was like running a marathon. And I was hooked up to so many tubes I was on. Why did you have to learn to rewalk because of the toes? No, because of my muscle. Everything after. Oh, so it's just, Right. But how fast did it come back?

I took two weeks for me to get into rehab and then another two weeks in rehab to be able to walk out of the hospital. And the first two weeks was to be able to get up and walk across the road. I was on a trache. I was hooked up to all these tubes, a life support. So you're pushing the whole thing as your life. I was pushing. I was carrying tubes around with me. What motivated me that I really realized this, it's setting realistic. mistake goals for yourself. There, you, you have micro goals, but we go to macro goals.

It's really focusing on what's achievable now. Okay. So tell me what that look like. To walk three steps was next to impossible for me. But I didn't want to take a shit in a bedpan again. That was 15 steps across the room to get into the, into the bathroom. I kicked my physical therapist out of the room. multiple times because I was exhausted.

And AJ looked at me and said, you know, you got to get, you got to get them back in here and keep going because you have to be able to walk across that room to get into rehab to get you out of the hospital. So I said to her, and go, oh, I didn't want to go to the bathroom with that bedpan again. I said, get them back in here. He goes, Greg, that's, she's, that's 15 steps across the room. I go get them back in here. So I made by 15 steps and I was able to go to the bathroom.

and that was the highlight of that journey to get out of that hospital. She actually was saying to me, I want to wheel you out into the atrium to get fresh air. I said, babe, I'm going to walk out of this hospital across that threshold once. And when I walk over that threshold, I'm not coming back in. So my focus was to get and do the work, get busy, to do the work to get to be able to walk out of that hospital. How is your mental health during this period of time?

It was really great. Because you were just going to run through that wall. You aren't going to. You were just on fire to get well. Yes. And it helped me with my village. And you all took a part in this. The love that I received from everybody.

And it came from a few hundred of my closest friends to thousands nationwide. Right. Because my story went oral wide. That's right. there was so much love and support that I did not want to fail for them as well. First and foremost for myself. Right. But I didn't want to fail for that. It's amazing how many people loved you up when you had this. I got probably 25 calls and we hadn't seen each other in 30 years. Yeah. True. Everybody from school. Yeah. Everybody was praying for you. And it worked. Whatever it did,

it worked. Okay. So you had nine surgeries and eight months, right? Yeah. Okay. Getting back on the mountain. When you're going up the chairlift, okay, what's going through your mind? Oh man, it started when I first carried my skis out and just stepped into the skis, ran on the, right on the deck. There were tears flowing because there was a slight part of me that didn't think I was getting there because of the struggles that I was going through. Right. There was always that little bird in the back that's saying that. I didn't listen too much to it, but it was always there.

I wasn't blinded by the possibilities that that wouldn't happen. When I was going up, it was the most freeing feeling ever because it was getting back to reality. getting back to what I found as like my foundation. Are you as good a skier now as you were before COVID? Without a doubt. For sure. 100%. Uh-huh.

You can hold the poles? So for the first four years, four and a half years, I skied with one pole and perfected it. I skied everything I did before. It was definitely a little challenging balance-wise, but I had to put myself in certain positions to really meet my expectations for myself. This past year, I found an adaptive piece that was able to put a pole in my right hand, and it took everything to the next level. You didn't want to make a piece for yourself? I tried to find, to figure it out.

And I, Glenn Plank, who's, I don't know if you know who he is. He's one of the innovators of extreme skiing on all the Warren Miller films, the guy that had the mohawk, friend of mine in Mammoth. And he's also an engineer and he was trying to put something together for me. And there's a couple people that actually were trying to figure a couple things out. And then another buddy of mine put me in touch with somebody at disabled sports up in Mammoth. And they had a product that's already ready to go. So I didn't take the time to research it because I didn't want to figure it out.

I just wanted to do it on my own. Right. When I put that, that pull on my right hand, everything clicked. And I'm 110% on skis. How many toes do you got still? Oh, I just lost three of my, the tips of three of my toes on my right foot, just behind the tone. Not even an issue. So you're totally fine.

So when you were walking, it was about the atrophy. It wasn't about... Well, I also had something called a peronial neuropathy. When I was put on... When I was in sedation, under sedation, they put compression sleeves on my legs for blood clotting.

And it pinched my peronial nerve on the right side of my knee. And what that did was it eliminated my foot to retract, the ability to retract, Think of it is putting pressure on your gas pedal, but not being able to pull your foot off of your gas pedal. So there was a 90 plus percent chance that my peronial nerve would heal,

but there was also a chance that it wouldn't. And it took about six months, and all of a sudden it came back. I had to walk around with a plate in my shoe, which was hooked on like a shin guard, which loads up the foot and then it pushes it back so that I could walk with a normal gate. Once that healed, game on. Good for you, man.

You know what I want to talk about next? I want to talk about the support you received from your girlfriend, who is now your fiancé, because I heard that she was the most extraordinary woman. Without a doubt. Okay. Tell me how that support looked and how that brought you guys closer. and if there was any challenges during the part. Like, so for example, you could be forgiven for being mean or short with people during this period of time.

I assume that happened a couple times. I mean, look, we all slip and fall. We all have moments. I always say that through this journey, I never had a bad day, ever. I had bad moments, but I never had a bad day. So you're like my grandpa. You're like everyone's grandpa. You're like, seriously, I don't, you remind me of our greatest generation, our grandparents.

That's the honor. This is how our grandparents would have behaved. They would have, it wouldn't have been like, oh, I'm depressed or, oh, I'm, you know, I'm a victim or any of that. They would have dusted themselves off and ran, and ran right. through that wall. Okay. So tell me about, tell me about A.J.

Tell me how she supported you through this process. So AJ and I were only together for 18 months when this happened. Wow. Yeah. So it was, it was fresh. We were not looking to find,

we weren't each other's person in the very beginning. But we had so much fun together because we both were just fresh out of relationship. that we weren't looking for another relationship, but we met because she was at a friend of mine's restaurant who a friend of mine called me and actually said, I found her, I found your girl. I'm like, okay. So I Facebook's doctor. Good. No interest in me at all. Right. And then it turned out that she, another friend of hers actually gave her the, gave me the green light of, of me being a good guy. And then we started

dating. And between the two of us, we just had a lot of fun together. And it wasn't, I wasn't looking for somebody at that point, but I found somebody that was really special. And this was the ultimate test. And when I was put in the hospital and put under sedation, my sister, who lives up north in Palo Alto, moved in with AJ. And the two of them, obviously they had made. met, you know, sporadically at certain family dinners and whatnot. But the two of them became sisters. And they were, they quarterbacked with my medical team and were the liaison between me and the hospital and the world, my village first and foremost.

What's the village? My friends and family. Okay. So we call them the village. Good. And that's kind of an incredible meaningful thing in my heart. Am I in the village? Because you need a village idiot.

We're all village idiots, my friend. And get you on. She was there. Everybody was in shock at how she was on point. Giving updates four times a day to our village. That's who we were getting. The updates from, I was getting them from Tracy and Tracy was getting them from AJ. Yeah.

Yes. We all went to high school together, folks. Sorry. Yep. Yeah. And they kept everybody abreast my situation from having the most incredibly successful moments to 15 minutes later. It was, you know, my blood pressure would crash and I would code flatline. I died four different times.

the table. Did you see anything? Didn't see it? Well, it's not that I saw, I didn't see something. What I did see was I had, I believe it was when I was coming out of sedation. I was on so many freaking drugs that I was, I was in different places, man. I was, I was, I was in Utah. I was in Vegas. I was in, I was, I was in our buddy Strauss's house. I'm the Richard's kid's godfather. So I was in his extra room where my night nurse was with me and I was hanging out there. And that night he led a couple of his friends in.

The nurse let a couple of his friends in and they killed Richard and my goddaughter. That didn't happen. But I was going through this ICU psychosis when I was coming to. I was losing my shit. And I was a mess. Did you know in that moment? Like you aren't a drug addict. Okay.

Like when I was on drugs and if we overshot the mark, we knew that we were going insane in that moment. And instead of panicking, we just leaned into it. Is that kind of how you did it? No, I actually, I was the opposite because I was coming off all the drugs so I wasn't in sedation anymore and um I was wanting to I was wanted to rip somebody's head off but you know I my fingers were were all decayed I mean I couldn't do anything I was a life support man I was strapped down for Christ's sake um there was I actually

saw one of the nurses so um I thought this one guy this nurse was put away and what do you mean put away in jail a nurse What I thought. Oh, when you were when you were hallucinating. It was hallucinating. Right. So I was, I woke up one night or one afternoon and they were doing the, the change of the guard, so to speak, with the nurses.

And I saw the guy walk by. And I'm like, oh, my God, he's out. He's out of jail. And I freaked out. And I called, you know, called one of the nurses in and he comes out, call 911 and blah, blah, blah. And they were trying to calm me down. and I was just losing my shit. Well, if you recall,

nobody was allowed in the hospital. That's right. When AJ and my sister were allowed in the hospital on my birthday on April 16th, and that was right when I was coming around. I think I woke up on the 12th, and they were allowed in the hospital. And this was right when I was going through all my psychotic behavior.

And I snapped out of, it the day AJ got there and AJ walked over to me and I said how's Allison Richard's wife and she goes she's fine I'm like what do you mean she's fine her husband and her daughter are dead she goes what are you talking about I just talked to him this morning and I literally snapped out of it and my mental state was just from disarray to focused at that particular time and the administration looked at AJ and said we're going to allow you to come in every single day because his mental health is just as important as his physical health, and we need to give out the hospital. So she was allowed to be in the hospital every day, and she was there every single day for 30.

Did she take, this is in April and the vaccines were available in December. When did she take the vaccine? Right when it was available. The day, we both did. In January. Well, you probably got it in December. No, well, whenever it came to do. So we both, we both were able to get it at the same time. That's fantastic. Yeah. That's fantastic. Because I was thinking, you know, this is, you just went through something horrific and she wasn't afraid. She went home to the room.

Yeah. Yeah. That one really loves you. She's a beast. This is really funny. It was a really funny story. So when I checked into the hospital, prior to checking in, I had to have my dog get taken care of because my dog bear is a 90-pound house. half Newfoundland half lap on a huge dog person.

She was like my kid. And at the time, she was great trait. So I was calling around, this is before I was even thinking about going in the hospital, I was calling around to get her taken care of if that was the case. And nobody would take care of her, obviously because everybody thought that COVID was letting on the fur. Remember we were wiping down her grocery. Yeah.

All that, that was that crazy moment. So I called the CDC. I called the animal control. I called my dog trainer. I called my vet. I called everybody under the son. Nobody would go to the dog. So what about what about friends and family?

Nobody would go to the dog. Everybody was fearful of the virus potentially was living on fur. So that the dog was exposed. So everybody was fearful and justifiably so. So the hospital, the administration, the nurses were willing to go get the dog out of the house. But the administration would not allow them to for liability reasons. So AJ, because I locked the dog in her crepe when I went to the hospital. She was in her crepe for about eight hours.

And AJ said, I'm not letting this dog die. And she's like, I'll do it. So the hospital brought her in, gave her two. and a half hours of hazmat training and center in full hazmat gear to my house now here's a crazy story my house is like fort knox because i had a burglary my house was you're familiar with ring video doorbell obviously yeah where where where is the house it's in uh studio city okay so my house was the very first documented arrest ring video doorbell ever had dude you're a first for everything you're like you're like a you're like a you're like a unicorn good

It was a little crazy. So, AJ, my house is like Fort Knox in the sense. There's eight foot fences. There's, you know, alarm systems, the whole nine yards. So I said to AJ, do me a favor when you go to the house. Don't lock yourself in the backyard because it's going to be very difficult for you to get out. So she had to go through the house, through the garage, get the dog out of the crate, and through the process of doing hazmat training, they had to take, she takes the dog outside in full hazmat gear.

washes the dog with antiviral shampoo, goes to go back through the house, and locked herself in the freaking backyard. Right. So she had to climb an eight-foot fence through a tree, and she's about as fit as you can get. In a hazmat series. In hazmat gear.

Yeah. Stripped butt naked in front of my house because you have to get all that stuff all out, and then got dressed, went back in the house, and let the dog back in, and then took her, took my dog to,

to her house for the next 64 days while I was in the hospital. So she saved Bear's life, and in turn, Bear saved hers. How did Bear save hers? Mental. So she was that loving, that loving creature that she'd delve into because it was a part of me. Four years later, what's the biggest change in how you live day to day and what drives you now? I truly have always been this kind of a person, but I've always lived with the purpose of living life with glass half full, without a doubt. It's emphasized tremendously.

Every day I wake up in the morning, life is a gift. You are the most upbeat, grateful. You just, you have this joy of. of living, right, that is intoxicating. And what you've been through shows such resilience. And to come out of this thing completely mentally healthy is unusual. It's like, you're stellar, Greg.

You did great, man. Okay? You walked out of this thing. You got any trauma over it? No. Yeah. He wouldn't admit to it if you did. In fact, you wouldn't even recognize it if you had it.

Seriously. That's how that's how buttoned down you are. I'm telling you, man, you remind me of my grandfather. And that's the highest compliment I can give anybody. Unbelievable, man. I think we're going to exit on that. We'll see you next Tuesday. That's right.

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