Florida woman pictured lying on floor waiting for Covid treatment speaks out about her ordeal

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Toma Dean, the Florida woman who was pictured lying on a library floor in Jacksonville, while awaiting Covidtreatment has spoken out about her experience.

“I was fighting for my life,” said Ms Dean to Inside Edition, after battling coronavirus for two weeks.

When she first contracted the virus, an ER doctor told her that an antibody cocktail called Regeneron was her best chance of fighting it. She went to the city’s main library, which had been converted into a coronavirus treatment centre, to receive the treatment.

“I knew that if I didn't lay there on that floor, that I was not gonna make it to the treatment and that was my last chance before someone possibly put me on a ventilator,” said Ms Dean.

The desperate photo of Ms Dean, taken by another patient named Louie Lopez, went viral on social media – showing how dire the situation currently is in Florida. The state has been dubbed the ‘epicentre’ of Covid cases in the US, with more Covid cases and deaths recently recorded than in any other point in the pandemic.

Staff at the library eventually "poured" Ms Dean into a wheelchair, explained Lopez to ABC News.

Ms Dean was unvaccinated when she caught Covid-19. "You don't realise how hard it is to breathe," she told ABC News.

"I could even tell you all the different things, how I've felt and how sick I've been 12 hours before that picture was taken. I was telling my family, 'I can't do this anymore. I'm giving up,'" said Ms Dean.

She told Inside Edition that she is feeling better after treatment, but during the video interview, was coughing and clearly displayed laboured breathing. “This morning I woke up, and I thought, I actually can walk more than five feet without screaming and telling my family I'm running out of air.”

Ms Dean has said she plans to get vaccinated as soon as she can.

On 23 August, cases shot up to 37,685 and 297 deaths in Florida, according to John’s Hopkins data. There are ICU bed shortages as the state struggles to get a grip of the contagious Delta variant.

There have been more than 3 million coronavirus cases in Florida to date and 42,252 deaths as a result of the disease. More than 52 per cent of the state has been fully vaccinated.

The Independent has contacted Toma Dean for further comment.