COVID-19 is a virus that is continuing to impact ALL of us every single day. There is so much uncertainty surrounding this virus, and many of our front-line workers go to their jobs every day to face the unknown.

This is exactly what happened to Muscogee County Coroner, Eddie “Buddy” Brian. Brian’s story starts with what, for him, is very normal. On December 15th Buddy went on two death call assignments. On these assignments, Mr. Brian was directly exposed to COVID-19 by both families. His wife insisted that he get tested, and on the 17th of December, Buddy Brian tested positive.

Buddy planned to do his 10 days of isolation with his wife, who also tested positive, and dog and ride out the virus in peace. However, as Mrs. Brian got better Buddy began to go on the decline. Buddy says he would “wake up every morning and thank God [he] was still alive.

This is when Buddy turned to IACT Health.

IACT Health is Columbus, Georgia’s local medical research clinic and at our clinic, we are dedicated to “revolutionizing research and changing lives.” During the COVID-19 pandemic, IACT has been offering free rapid testing, vaccine trials from Pfizer as well as Novavax, but what we also offer is COVID-19 treatment. This is what Buddy Brian called a “life-changing experience.”

Before Mr. Brian enrolled into our trial, he genuinely did not know if he was going to make it. His doctors wanted to admit him to the hospital and put him on a ventilator. Instead, Buddy went through Regeneron’s IV infusion “cocktail” with us at IACT. He says that the next morning he could “see light at the end of the tunnel, not the death light but the life light” and every day he got better and better.

Mr. Brian does not deny that he still struggles with the residual effects of this virus. He has lung damage that his doctors are working hard to remedy, and he still gets winded on occasion. However, he believes that without the care from the IACT team he fully believes that he would have just become another statistic. He now has so much more energy and he is back to living a relatively normal life.

Mr. Brian says that he can see how people can die from this virus, and he would now preach to his friends to go through our programs. He encouraged his friend to go through our vaccine program because there is so much difficulty getting access to approved vaccines in the community.