A former broadcaster is telling his story after an unexpected medical ordeal that saw him in ICU for months fighting for his life.

Sixty-one-year-old Tom Ormsby had a two-decade radio career with VOCM, as the long-time morning show host on CHVO in Carbonear, and as the host of the Irish-Newfoundland show.

He went on to public relations and ended up in Halifax where last summer he showed up for a routine COVID test after feeling a bit unwell. Little did he know that “COVID was the only thing” he didn’t have.

It turned out that the person doing his test was a nurse, who ran his vitals and immediately recognized that something was very wrong. He was directed to get himself to the hospital, and within hours he was in ICU in a medically-induced coma battling pneumonia, sepsis and multiple organ failure.

It turns out that congestive heart failure led to pneumonia, which led to sepsis. The challenge faced by the medical team he says was bringing him out of the coma to do the required surgery on his heart, but all the odds were stacked against him.

He was in ICU for 63 days and despite the challenges, he survived the infection, heart failure, and surgery, but the road to recovery was a long one. He says he didn’t know a thing when he finally gained consciousness, and building his strength proved to be challenging as he had lost more than 50 pounds and 27 per cent of his overall body mass.

He couldn’t even feed himself, with no strength to bring a fork or spoon to his mouth. “Those were some pretty dark times,” says Ormsby, who remembers helplessly watching the food fall off his spoon.

Ormsby is on the mend and feeling stronger all the time. He even enjoyed a game of his beloved golf this week. He’s thankful for the dedicated health care staff who attended to his care and the nurse who was in the right place at the right time and recognized he was in trouble.