Last month, Sandy Fields lay in her hospital bed after testing positive for COVID-19. She thought about all the times she had not worn a mask.
“It’s not that I didn’t wear it, but no, if I didn’t have to, I didn’t. I am a strong country girl out here in God’s country with all of this fresh air and sunshine; why the hell do I need a mask?” she said.
“I made poor choices. They were mine to make,” Fields said last week.
“All of these people out here saying, ‘They ain’t going to make me wear a mask.’ OK. That’s your choice, but when you get sick, it’s too late.”
Fields has owned the Brown County Dragway in Bean Blossom for 28 years. She had to close early for the season after the 30th annual Fall Invitational the weekend of Oct. 16 due to her illness.
On Oct. 26, her daughter drove her to St. Francis Hospital where she was tested for COVID-19 and was admitted immediately. At the hospital, she received a mixture of medical cocktails — including plasma from people who had COVID-19 antibodies in their system — until she was released on Oct. 31.
The only symptom Fields experienced was extreme exhaustion, something she still struggles with now as she continues to recover.
Here’s her story, as explained to this reporter:
“I got the virus for my birthday, Oct. 19. I kept holding out, holding out and I went the following Monday (Oct. 26). My daughter pulled up at St. Francis emergency room and they took me away in a wheelchair. … She thought she’d never see me again. …
“I was in such bad shape, I don’t even remember a lot of it. I really don’t. I read her (social media) post and she was really tore up about it because they would not let her in. She watched them wheel me away in a wheelchair.
“Everything you see the president get on TV, I got. The five shots of Remdesivir, two units of plasma that had antibodies in it from somebody else and high doses of antibiotics. I got it all.
“I had a doctor sit right there at the end of my bed and tell me that she had gave those same drugs to people and had lost them. She said I got a second chance, so that sounded good.
“Remdesivir, it wasn’t approved yet, but the last shot she actually gave me, I got one a day, a bag of stuff, she said they actually had just approved it as a medication for COVID.
“Don’t even ask me all of the drugs they gave me. I couldn’t tell you.”
Now that she has a second chance at life, Fields is going to use it to share her story.
She wants to let everyone know that wearing masks is important during this worldwide pandemic as Brown County, Indiana, and the country as a whole experience surges in positive cases.
Fields did not wear a mask as often as she should before she caught the virus, but now she wants the community to learn from her mistakes.
“I had some drivers that once the governor opened up the race tracks that they had to wear masks, they called me. The drivers were really upset about it. I had drivers call me and they said, ‘If you’re going to make us wear a mask, we’re not coming.’ I told them, ‘You know what? That’s your choice.’ And it was, but it wasn’t the right choice though. …
“I promised that doctor that I would shout it out everywhere, that I would spread the word.
“The government is not trying to control you. This is your choice. That one doctor said, ‘If everybody would just do it (wear a mask) for 30 or 60 days, we can get a handle on this,’ but people won’t.
“So many of the guys, 40 or 50 years old, they think they’re tough and they don’t need to wear a mask. Other guys will go, ‘It’s not required to wear masks.’ It’s not about required, it’s about making your choice to wear the mask. That’s what it’s all about it.
“I don’t know where I got it. I stupidly laid sick, getting sicker and sicker that week (of Oct. 19), then come around the next corner, my daughter came to get me on Monday (Oct. 26).
“I laid up there and thought about it a lot in that hospital. If you don’t have a mask on and you talk to someone and you spread it out, then that person takes it home to their family. It can snowball so quick. If everybody would just have that mask on when they are in public, stay a certain distance. No hugging anymore. We’ll just have to wait until this is over before we can get a hug. Just back up and stay home.
Even if you test positive and aren’t showing symptoms of the virus, you should stay home, Fields said.
“(I have family in) Tennessee … who are positive. They are supposed to be in quarantine. They are running around everywhere. Her daughter is allowing it and I said, ‘Why are they doing that?’ She said, ‘I give my opinion and these young kids prove positive, but they are not sick.’”
The fall invitational is the dragway’s biggest race of the year. It’s also a busy weekend for Fields, who said she only slept about six hours in three days that weekend. So, when Monday rolled around and Fields felt exhausted, that was to be expected.
But then Fields was still exhausted that Tuesday.
“By Wednesday, my daughter said she was taking me to the hospital and I said, ‘No, you’re not.’ Luckily, I had help here at the house because I could not take care of myself. I just kept getting worse and worse.”
Almost two weeks since being released from the hospital, Fields is still fighting exhaustion.
“This thing, you’ve got to come back from it. Nobody knows what that number is. Nobody knows how long it will take to come back and the degree that you had it.
“It’s so debilitating. That was the only sign, it completely tore me down. Exhaustion. I had the virus in my lungs.
“I had a heart issue, too, back in August, so I had one of them oxygen sensors on the end of my finger. It got down to like 88 and I thought, ‘Well, that thing is broke.’ It wasn’t. It (COVID-19) was coming through my lungs.”
Fields said she has no clue how she may have caught the virus.
“I was out in the bright sunshine, up there doing my work, getting ready for that big race. Who knows. Who knows.
“I want to get it out there that it’s not about macho and it’s not about your fancy mask. Just put on a mask everywhere you go. I mean everywhere. You don’t slip up one time because that one time could get you.
“I’d pull up to dollar store in Bean Blossom. They say ‘required mask.’ Sometimes I had one in my pocket and sometimes I didn’t. Other times I had one on and I took it off when I got off in there. That’s another stupid mistake I made. You have no idea.
“But the bottom line is I was selfish because I took the chance, not because I ended up with it, but I took a chance of affecting other people. I took a chance if someone else didn’t have a mask on, standing there and talking to me, might have been infected, then I would take it home to somebody else. That’s what people have to understand.
“Do you want to see you grandchildren get it and die? Do you want to see grandma and grandpa get it and die? You have to stop and think about this.”
After she tested positive, all races at the dragway were canceled and she shut the whole operation down early in a year where she was already forced to close down for a time due to COVID-19.
“I had other races that I needed to get in for October, but I was down and I couldn’t do it. … We’re closed for the season. We usually run through October anyways. The pretty weather I’ve had, I could have run the last three weeks. It’s been an interesting year.”
Gov. Eric Holcomb allowed for race tracks to reopen this summer, including the dragway.
“When the governor put race tracks all under an umbrella, Brown County don’t match the 500. I know they did a lot of things really, really quickly, and when they say race track, they put us under that umbrella that we shouldn’t have been put under. But when they opened it up, we couldn’t have any spectators. That was kind of stupid. You can’t make no money if you can’t have no spectators. Then he said we could have crew members. Well, all of the track spectators become crew members. We eventually kept rolling over into being open.
“I’ve got some of my older drivers that told me that once this settles down, they’ll come, but they won’t come until it does. I told them, I said, ‘Man, you’re in your race car, your helmet and you’re away from everybody. I don’t know what you’re scared of.’ But anyways, if they were (scared) that’s fine, because some of the older people are taking some precautions from what I’ve seen.”
If COVID-19 is still a battle this country is facing come next season and masks are still required, Fields said she will be stronger in enforcing the mask requirement at the dragway.
Until then, she will share her story as a cautionary tale, especially as the holidays approach and people will be around their families.
“The best thing I can do is word of mouth. I give my story. … I thought I was tough. I wasn’t going to get this (expletive). … I just tried to get my testimony out there.”
Fields shared that she had tested positive on the dragway’s Facebook page, and reiterated that this virus is real, that masks are important, and she should have been wearing them more often.
“I’ve had some drivers call or hit me up on Facebook saying, ‘Sandy, thank you for your story.’
“Usually, I don’t say I’m sorry, and I don’t give into nothing, so for me to do that, you know? With that said, and they see from that, this must be pretty bad for me to come up with something like this.
“I tell you what, and plaster it out there if you’re going to put my name to anything: Wear the masks. Stop the macho (expletive). I made some poor choices.
“It’s real. It wasn’t political. It never was. It’s real. Everybody needs to deal with it as a very real, serious disease. It’s invisible. It’s silent. You don’t see it coming.
“I don’t know how to express to people that the only way you’re going to stop it is wear that mask, keep them hands clean and stay away from people the best you can. I know you can’t always do that. Just pay attention to what you’re doing. If you go, ‘Oh, I don’t need my mask this time.’ Yes, you do.
“Make better choices than I made. Don’t make the stupid mistakes that I made. They were mine to make and they are the next person’s to make, but the next person might die. I was given a second chance.”
