A Pennsylvania woman is helping to save the lives of two COVID-19 patients – one of them a family member – by donating her blood plasma.

For the past month, Marisa Leuzzi’s Aunt Rene Bannister has been fighting for her life on a ventilator at Virtua Voorhees Hospital.

“There were multiple times that we got phone calls saying that they didn’t think she would make it through the night,” Leuzzi says.

But Bannister is now out of the hospital and in rehab thanks to a blood plasma donation from Leuzzi, who herself is a COVID-19 survivor.

“We brought it up to her team of doctors at the ICU at Virtua and they were honest with us and said, ‘We don’t know if this will work. It’s still very new. There’s not a lot of information on it.’ But they were willing to give it a try,” Leuzzi says.

VIRUS TRACKER: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut coronavirus cases and deaths 
MORE: LIVE BLOG - Coronavirus updates from the tri-state area and beyond
MORE: New Jersey Coronavirus Dashboard 
FULL COVERAGE: Coronavirus Pandemic

Leuzzi donated her plasma with the help of the American Red Cross. Bannister started to improve almost immediately.

“Within the next three days, we started to see all of her other vitals like her blood pressure improve. Her heart rate improved, her oxygen improved and her fever was also coming down,” Leuzzi says.

 

And it turns out that Leuzzi’s plasma was also able to help save another life – that of Mount Laurel husband and father Andy Fei.

“He’s doing good. Every day is better than the last,” says Fei’s son Patrick. "After the plasma, it sounded like his oxygen levels were getting better. His kidneys were functioning better and that really was the turning point for the whole situation."

Fei is now off a ventilator. His family says that they are hopeful he will be moved to a rehab facility soon. They say that they are hoping to spread the message about blood plasma donations.

“For us, we would just encourage anyone who’s recovered to do their part and donate plasma, because it’s created a real difference in helping the fight,” says Fei’s other son, Eric.

Virtua says that Leuzzi is the American Red Cross' first donor for this initiative nationwide. Both Fei and Bannister were taken off a ventilator in less than two weeks after receiving the plasma transfusion.