Standing just under 5 feet tall, Brittany Vickers greeted a group of Emory Healthcare leaders for what she called a big moment. The crowd stood to their feet with thunderous claps as she wiped her tears and took a microphone.
Vickers, a wife and a 37-year-old mother of three children never thought she would be able to walk or talk again. In March 2024, her husband rushed her to Coffee Regional Medical Center in Douglas, Georgia. Doctors diagnosed her with flu, Covid and pneumonia while in the ICU. Her condition worsened and doctors at Coffee Regional called the Emory Healthcare Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) team in Atlanta.
ECMO provides an advanced form of life support for people with heart or lung failure. The team drove to Coffee County and transported Vickers to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta where doctors performed several surgeries and procedures. She described those moments as being pulled from the brink of death.
Emory Healthcare runs the leading ECMO program in the Southeast. The team often travels to rural areas within a four-hour radius of Atlanta, to assist those who do not have access to advanced technology or treatment for care.
Vickers spent more than 100 days in the hospital as she and doctors fought to save her life. She attributes her recovery to physicians and clinicians at Emory Healthcare and thanked leaders and her care team for their support, compassion and what she called a second chance at life.
