A 3D CT scan of the chest shows the widespread damage COVID-19 can do to a person’s lungs, according to a report and video from The Washington Post.

Swathed in protective gear, Dana Redding knelt beside her husband’s hospital bed and repeated over and over the only words of which she could think: “I love you. I love you.”

She reached through the tangle of tubes that were taking the blood from his body and flushing it with oxygen and clutched his limp hand in one of her gloved ones. “I need your help.”

It had been barely three weeks since Keith Redding, 59, started feeling weary and nauseated. Then came the diarrhea and the hoarse, hacking cough — early symptoms of covid-19, though neither Redding knew it then. By the time Dana, 48, drove Keith to the emergency room on March 11, a week after his symptoms first appeared, some 30 percent of his lungs had been damaged. On a rare three-dimensional CT scan of his chest, the profusion of viral particles and dead cells showed up like scattered bits of broken glass. His condition declined as the disease spread throughout his body, a storm of inflammatory proteins overwhelming his vital organs one by one.

Read more from The Washington Post.

Featured image: A still from a 3D video of Keith Redding’s lungs shows the damaged areas (in yellow) caused by COVID-19. The scan was taken two days before the patient required assistance from a ventilator. Courtesy, The Washington Post.