LI Correction Officer Survives 6-Month COVID Battle: 'It Was Horrible'

RIVERHEAD, NY — In September 2021, Timothy Heaton was just days from retiring from the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office, where he worked as a correction officer in the Riverhead jail for almost 25 years. Days away from retirement dreams shared by so many — until what happened next plunged him deep into a nightmare beyond anything he'd ever imagined.

He'd been ill, Heaton said. "I just wasn't feeling right," he explained. His wife, a nurse, took Heaton to the hospital Sept. 26.

"They immediately admitted me to the ICU. She figured I'd be there a day or two. I ended up being there at Stony Brook until Feb. 11, 2022," Heaton said.

Heaton, 62, who lives in Medford, was honored by Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon at a ceremony Thursday in Yaphank, where he received his "retired "shield.

His voice filled with emotion, Heaton told Patch about a long and grueling journey, one far more threatening than any of the dangerous criminals he'd encountered behind bars during his life's career.

Heaton, who spent more than 160 days in the hospital, was finally released in March 2022. In the months that passed, he missed myriad milestones, including his retirement from the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office and the birth of his granddaughter Haylee.

Describing his ordeal, Heaton said COVID "hit me like a ton of bricks." After leaving Stony Brook University Hospital, he was transferred to St. Charles Rehabilitation, to help him learn to move and walk again.

"I couldn’t move my pinky," he said. "I couldn’t stand up. The first time I stood up, it felt like 10,000 mirrors breaking in my body, with all the blood surging through my body to my feet. Back then I could walk only about a foot, now I can walk six miles. I could hardly breathe. I felt like I was winning the Super Bowl when I was able to walk to the end of the driveway to the mailbox. I was so out of breath. I thought, 'Am I ever going to get better?'"

But he could stride, strong and sure, during his walkout ceremony with the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department Thursday.

"Everyone at Stony Brook and St. Charles, they saved my life," Heaton said. "I was in a coma for six weeks. I had a tracheotomy, feeding tubes. I was on a ventilator."

While he was never "anti-vax," Heaton had not been vaccinated yet when he contracted COVID; now he's had his vaccine and boosters.

"I was always healthy," he said. "I had no comorbidities."

And yet, COVID-19 attacked his body with a savage ruthlessness that almost destroyed him.

"The nurses did X-rays on my chest, and it was inundated with COVID. They said they'd never seen anything like it," he said.

The day he was put on a ventilator was one of the most frightening of his life, Heaton said. The doctor asked him if he'd like a "do not resuscitate" or DNR, form, he said. "That was the scariest thing."

Once in ICU, "it went downhill from there," Heaton said. "But they kept me alive. How they did it, I don't know." After being in ICU for three months, he was brought to a step-down unit; during his months of agony with tracheotomy tubes, he coded — he wasn't breathing and had no pulse — three times.

But his family's love buoyed him through the darkest hours.

"My wife refused to sign the DNR," he said. "She said, 'No, just keep going,'" he said.

Aside from the Herculean efforts of the hospital staff to save him, and the collective medical expertise that guided his journey, Heaton credits his deep faith for his survival. "I emphasize this," he said. "Prayer saved me. Just pray. It works. That's the only explanation of how I survived this."

His recovery was inexplicable to many, Heaton said. "When I got to the step-down unit, they were amazed, saying, 'How is he alive?' I attribute that to prayer."

Heaton explained that he was one of a very few to survive COVID after being as desperately ill as he was. He was intubated for close to 31 days, when usually, people intubated for five days or more are not expected to survive, he said.

"I was bleeding from the chest from the tubes, in a coma — I was a mess," he said.

During the months before he contracted COVID, the coronavirus was a concern at the Suffolk County correctional facility — as it was for all congregate settings — in Riverhead where Heaton worked. In October 2021, one month after he was diagnosed, 31 staff members in the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office and the county's two correctional faciltiies were out with COVID, Toulon said, announcing aggressive new protocols to battle the delta variant.

At that time, according to data on Toulon's website, a total of 98 inmates in the Suffolk County Correctional facilities had had COVID-19; 79 contracted the virus in jail and 19 contracted COVID-19 before they were incarcerated.

By December 2021, zero inmates tested positive for COVID, Toulon said.

The first inmate and corrections officer were diagnosed with COVID at the Riverhead facility in April 2020.

Sadly, Sheriff’s Office Sgt. John Lowry, of Hampton Bays died of COVID-19 at 60 while in service on Oct. 6 2021. He had served for more than 30 years, officials said.

Heaton said while he was working at the jail, all wore masks and followed protocols, although some, like he, were not immediately vaccinated.

"In hindsight, even if there was a chance I could die from the vaccine, I would take the vaccine, compared to what I went through," he said. "It was horrible. I wouldn't wish anyone to go through what I went through."

During the time that he was in a coma, and when his heart coded and he needed CPR to be brought back to life, Heaton said he had inexplicable experiences, times when he felt like he was floating. He could hear codes being called out on the floor, on the loudspeaker, announcing the unthinkable. "It scared you," he said.

Once when someone was being wheeled to the morgue, the staff cloaked in black, he saw what he believes was a "fog, coming out and bolting through his room, and out the window." Another time, he saw his friend James Molloy, who had died years earlier of 9/11-related cancer.

"I dreamt we were 15, out on the water in a puddle jumper. He said his dad said he had to take me back to the dock. I said, 'Why, we have plenty of gas?'' He insisted his father told him he had to bring me back."

And another time, he felt as though he were floating at the chapel at Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan near the World Trade Center. "It was as vivid as talking to you right now," he said.

Another vision involved his parents, long dead, and his father-in-law, talking and laughing in the living room, which he was unable to enter from the kitchen.

Although he cannot explain what he experienced, the things he saw, an AARP post said some who had severe COVID cases reported visions and hallucinations.

But for Heaton, everything he experienced cemented his already rock-solid faith. And today, he said his COVID journey changed his entire outlook on life.

"I pray every second of the day," he said. "You don't have to be in church to pray."

His priorities became crystal clear, he said.

"Chasing the almighty dollar means nothing when you are lying on your deathbed," Heaton said. "The only thing that matters is your family, when it boils down to it."

He collects classic cars and has long enjoyed the hobby, Heaton said. "But it's all nothing. All those earthly things are left behind. All that matters is health and family."

He still has difficulty grasping the enormity of what he survived, at times, Heaton said. "Even now, I feel like I died, and I'm now in heaven — I keep getting blessed, again and again."

Heaton thanked Toulon and Suffolk County Correction Officer Association President Louis Viscusi, for their steadfast support during his illness and the care they showed his family. He thanked his doctors and the nurses and staff at both Stony Brook and St. Charles. He thanked his longtime friend Jimmy Celentano, like a brother to him.

And he thanked his family, his wife of 35 years, Constance, his daughter Julie Jensen, also a nurse, his daughter Nicole, a teacher, and his son Walter, an engineer, for their endless love and dedication.

He met his granddaughter Haylee while he was being transferred by ambulance to St. Charles. "They brought her to me; that was the first time I saw her. It was a pretty big moment," he said.

Heaton was overwhelmed by the retirement shield ceremony Thursday, by the outpouring of love. A humble man, he said he wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve such a tribute. "All I did was not die."

In the end, Heaton believes faith brought him back, and he offers to pray for those he encounters. Today, Heaton hands out St. Jude cards, his patron saint who's always saved him, to friends and family.

Reflecting on the past months, Heaton said he feels blessed in a way that's hard to describe. "In that darkness, in that room for 5 months, I prayed. I said, 'What's going on? Please don't let me go. Please let me be a good man, and live on — and He did."

His voice soft, Heaton added: "I know there's a God that watches over us. There has to be a God."