Thursday, October 1, 2026
Debbie Rifenbury thought she might die. On April 3 she was admitted to Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital with a 105-degree fever and an oxygen level of 80 percent. She was told that if she wasn’t put on a ventilator, she might not make it.
“It felt like I had a knapsack on my lungs that was being pushed on,” she recalled. “I couldn’t breathe.”
Two days earlier on April 1, Rifenbury said, she started to feel “weird,” but didn’t have any idea how grim her condition would become. On April 3, she drove from her Oceanside home to an urgent-care center in Lynbrook, and from there she was rushed in an ambulance to MSSN, where she was diagnosed with Covid-19.
When she arrived at the hospital, Rifenbury, 61, was put on a ventilator in the intensive care unit and placed in a medically induced coma for six days. She recounted that she had tubes attached to her neck and arms. When she awoke, she said, she still struggled to breathe and had a powerful cough.
She was determined to make it through the ordeal so she could again see her boyfriend, Michael Miller; her daughters, Danielle, Jane and Ada; and her grandchildren, Ava, Ida, Landon and Nathan. Miller said he was concerned about Rifenbury’s health when she went to urgent care, but was startled when he got a call from the hospital informing him that the medical staff had to place his girlfriend on a ventilator so that she would live.
“It was really a horrible feeling,” he said, “because it’s somebody I love, and she’s fighting for her life. It was really a harrowing experience. . . . You have somebody that you care for, and you really don’t know what’s going on. You can’t go there, and you’d like to be able to hold her hand and let her know that somebody’s there. I was worried that I wouldn’t get a chance to tell her I love her.”
Rifenbury said it was hard for her to remain in the hospital after she awoke from the coma, knowing that her friends and family could not visit her. She kept her spirits up by talking to them on the phone and by singing and praying. She said she was grateful for her friends who contacted her and wished her well, some of whom she had lost contact with over the years.
Rifenbury spent a decade as an in-home elder care nurse to Oceanside resident Charles Brown, who died last October. Through her job, she said, she taught him breathing techniques and how to use inhalers, and also showed him which medicines to take. Now, it was Rifenbury practicing those same breathing methods she taught Brown for all of those years. She added that she was grateful for the staff at MSSN.
“I had the best care, and the ICU staff saved my life,” she said. “Everybody was coming and checking on me, coming to say hello to me and telling me I look wonderful. They called me a miracle because they said many people who come off the ventilator don’t make it.”
Rifenbury said she is still unsure how she contracted the virus, noting that it could have been from a grocery cart, door handle, handrail or ATM. She cautioned that if anyone is not taking the pandemic seriously, they should be.
“This is totally, totally serious,” she said. “You can get this disease anywhere, anytime. It’s invisible, and it can catch you when you’re not looking, because that’s what it did to me.” She urged the community to wear masks and gloves and to stay home as much as possible
On April 20, Rifenbury was released after 17 days in the hospital. She still has not regained all the strength in her lungs, and her cough lingers. She said she has issues climbing stairs, shortness of breath and feels weak, but she is optimistic that she will recover. After 17 days in bed, she said, it was difficult for her to walk. A nurse and a personal trainer come to her home a few times a week so she can exercise and continue to work on improving her breathing. She noted that she is grateful to be home for her recovery.
“I’m a very, very, very lucky girl because they say most people in my position don’t make it,” she said. “God has a plan for me. I’m not done yet.”
