Scott Radley: CHCH sportscaster in hospital with COVID

CHCH TV sportscaster Clint Bubba' O'Neil remains in hospital in Burlington after a scary few days battling COVID-19.

The 54-year-old says the experience has been truly frightening.

It just kept getting worse and worse," he says.

Sounding weak over the phone, he says he began feeling unwell a week ago Sunday. He figured he'd just sleep off whatever was affecting him. But things didn't improve and was off the air all last week.

Within a few days, he realized he likely had COVID when he looked online and realized he checked off pretty much every symptom. He was coughing, weak, nauseous, had no appetite, couldn't collect his thoughts and had no energy.

On Friday morning, things got nasty enough that he decided he had to get himself to Joseph Brant Hospital.

It was bad," he says. I don't even know how I drove here, quite honestly."

Within minutes of arriving, he'd been tested, found to be positive, was admitted and had oxygen tubes inserted into his nose. By this point, he felt dismal.

The experience and treatment were frightening. But, knowing the impact the virus has had on so many and the fact that many have died, made it terribly scary. Especially when everyone on his floor had COVID, some worse than him.

He says that awareness of the impact the pandemic has had led him to ask himself the same question over and over.

Am I ever going to get home again?" he wondered.

He has no idea where he got the virus. He says he's spent the past year trying to do all the right things to remain safe. Because of his age, he hadn't had the vaccine yet. That was hopefully coming soon.

The good news is that the oxygen tubes were removed on Tuesday suggesting things are improving. Even so, he said he remains exhausted and sounded barely audible at times over the phone

Doctors haven't told him how long he'll be in hospital or how long he'll be recovering.

O'Neil says he was never a skeptic about the virus. Yet the reality is worse than he expected.

You hear people say it's just a flu," O'Neil says. It's not. It's serious."

Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com