CLARKSVILLE, Ind. (WDRB) -- You have to born with courage to be a firefighter.
It was Levi Titus' life, until he retired from the Louisville Fire Department.
"It's just something you've got in your blood," Titus said.
Just because he wasn't running into burning buildings anymore didn't mean the brave spirit it took to do so went away. A couple months ago, he learned he still needed it.
"I'd be praying, and I'd say 'Lord, are you going to get me through this?'" he said.
He and his wife, Janie, were feeling under the weather.
"I had that same feeling that I had when I had pneumonia," Janie Titus said.
Levi Titus heard about the coronavirus targeting his age group, but he never thought it would turn his world upside down.
"She was the one who was really sick," he said. "I was concerned about her."
When he got his wife to the emergency room, nurses told him he needed immediate medical attention too. Levi and Janie Titus both had COVID-19.
"I remember them wheeling her out," he said. "I don't remember anything at the hospital until the day I left there to come here (Cobalt Rehabilitation Hospital in Clarksville). It's impossible to describe the condition I was in. I was as helpless as a newborn baby."
The 75-year-old's 35-day stay was longer than his wife's and full of grueling physical and occupational therapy, but it came to an end Friday morning.
"I feel wonderful," he said. "I'm going home."
With his hands in the air, a big smile on his face and a round of applause from his caretakers, Levi Titus was wheeled out of the southern Indiana rehab.
He knows he dodged the odds. Just like all those fires, he battled through the virus with the kind of courage and strength that made him one of Louisville Fire Department's finest.
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