One man’s family took his care into their own hands when he was hospitalized with COVID-19. As a result, they believe they may have saved his life.
Shannon Fletcher, daughter of David Dentz, spoke with Liz Collin this week to share her dad’s story and long battle with COVID.
Dentz was hospitalized with COVID-19 for 208 days, one of the longest COVID stays in the state. Not until his family began slipping him ivermectin did his health begin to look up, Fletcher said.
Early days
Dentz’s own father was hospitalized with COVID-19 in the fall of 2021 at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids. A week after testing positive, Richard Dentz was admitted and subsequently told he wasn’t going to make it.
Although visitors were not allowed at that time, Fletcher insisted she be let in to see her dying grandfather, and she was shocked at his condition.
“It looked like he had been left for dead,” she said. “He had been there for about 24 hours, had not been fed, had not been moved.”
Her family was eventually approved to stay with him 24/7, so she and her siblings took turns staying with him. They were pressured to put him on a ventilator, so they did. Six days later, doctors said he needed to be unplugged from life support. He died due to organ failure and COVID pneumonia in November 2021.
“I’m not kidding, as they unplugged him, they made a comment that he should have been vaxxed,” Fletcher said. “We heard that quite a few times when we were trying to get ivermectin or just anything for him.”
Around mid-November, Fletcher’s father, David Dentz, was also hospitalized due to COVID.
‘They wouldn’t try anything’
Dentz was put on a CPAP machine and given remdesivir, the only medication he was allowed to take. On Dec. 1, he agreed to be put on a ventilator.
Fletcher, her siblings, and their stepmom Angie were already on edge following their grandpa’s death, so they found it odd when the hospital did not require any sort of health care proxy for Dentz.
The family put money together to hire a patient advocate who would ask the hospital on Dentz’s behalf for other medications — ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, zinc, “anything,” Fletcher said.
“We just saw this happen with my grandpa, we need to try something different, and of course the answer was no,” Fletcher explained.
Methodist Hospital’s protocols required doctors to not administer ivermectin, Fletcher said. Two weeks into Dentz’s hospital stay, Fletcher and her family were paying out of pocket for an advocate and an attorney, trying to get Dentz help the hospital would not provide.
They were not allowed to visit him during this time, and the family held a “Save Dave” protest outside of the facility. Fletcher believes her father, who was not vaccinated, received worse treatment than those who were vaccinated against COVID.
The hospital also said he couldn’t be transferred.
“They absolutely would not try anything,” she said. “It was insane, the amount of hurdles we had to jump through, before we took matters into our own hands.”
The family hired a lawyer who agreed to take their case, only to find out on Jan. 9, 2022, almost two months into hospitalization, that Dentz’s wife, Angie, had to obtain emergency guardianship to make any further decisions.
Doctors and nurses tried to pressure Angie to unplug him several times, Fletcher said, but she did not give in. Every day from December 2021 through June 2022, Fletcher spoke with her two siblings and stepmom, and one of them visited Dentz every day.
“At this point we’ve lost all trust in the hospitals and their one-size-fits-all protocol,” Fletcher explained.
The hospital “shamed” the family when they didn’t want to give up on Dentz’s life, Fletcher said. Finally, Fletcher decided she wanted to bring ivermectin to her father and slip some in his mouth.
“There’s nothing that they’re going to do, and [they’re] already telling me he’s going to die, so we might as well try it,” Fletcher said.
After she succeeded once with the plan, her family continued sneaking ivermectin paste into Dentz’s mouth over the next five days.
“[The amount] was based on weight, so we took a small amount — and I know the media is going to put it down and call people crazy and this and that — but I don’t care because I believe he’s here for that reason,” Fletcher said.
“The day after we gave him ivermectin, Angie got a call and the doctor said she could not believe the progress that he was making. The very next day.”
Then Dentz was transferred out of the hospital to a specialist who said he was “overmedicated” and “over sedated,” according to Fletcher.
‘He’s doing amazing’
Over 200 days from his first admittance, Dentz was discharged. Fletcher said he struggles to breathe and has stage 3 kidney failure due to the remdesivir.
“Considering where we were, he’s doing amazing,” she said.
Fletcher suspects Methodist knew what the family was up to. Alpha News reached out to the hospital but was told by a spokesperson that “to protect patient privacy, [they] can’t share any information.”
Fletcher advised not trusting the mainstream media about “anything they say.”
Hospitals have been prioritizing profits over patients, she said, and so she encouraged listeners to “get a hold of some ivermectin” and talk to people about their experiences with COVID.
Rose Williams
Rose Williams is an assistant editor for Alpha News.
