COVID-19 Survivor Donates Plasma, Warns Others About The Virus

One Oklahoma City COVID-19 survivor is giving back, donating plasma with the hope he can help treat others with the virus. "I don’t want anyone to go through this," said Gus Pekara. Almost a month after getting COVID-19, Gus is feeling thankful he w

Friday, April 17th 2020, 1:32 am

By: Ashley Holden

Video Player is loading.

Current Time 0:00

Duration 0:00

Loaded: 0%

Stream Type LIVE

Remaining Time 0:00

COVID-19 Survivor Donates Plasma, Warns Others About The Virus

One Oklahoma City COVID-19 survivor is giving back, donating plasma with the hope he can help treat others with the virus.

"I don’t want anyone to go through this," said Gus Pekara.

Almost a month after getting COVID-19, Gus is feeling thankful he was healthy before fighting the virus.

Gus is in his mid 70's and thinks he was exposed at a lunch meeting he went to on March 11.

At first he seemed to have all the typical flu symptoms, but that quickly changed.

"A few days later when I took a deep breath I would be coughing," described Gus.

He was able to get tested pretty quickly but learning the results was a different story.

"Unfortunately it took 13 days to get the results of my test," said the COVID survivor.

After testing negative for the flu and strep and while they waited, Gus' doctor took action.

"My doctor kept in touch with me, so I knew that I had it," said Gus. "So we treated it like that."

He said there were some points where he feared the worst.

"Yep there were a couple of times when I didn’t know if I could get out of bed and those few times we were going to go to the hospital," said Gus

"It was bad for awhile," said Emily Pekata, Gus' wife.

But with medicine and an inhaler from his doctor, he was able to heal at home. His wife, never showing symptoms, nursed him back to health.

"When two people have been married as long as we’ve been married, you feel for the person," said Emily. "But you have to be strong."

Now Gus is back on his feet and feeling pretty much back to normal, so he decided he wanted to help in anyway he could.

"As one of my friends on Facebook said, maybe you can make lemonade out of the lemon," said Gus.

Through the Oklahoma Blood Institute, Gus donated plasma.

This is an experimental treatment being used to hopefully help COVID patients with severe symptoms.

He's happy he's in a position to help but has warning for Oklahomans.

"I would say this to anyone take it seriously," said Gus.

He said no one wants to go through what he had to.

Gus said he can donate again in a few weeks, and plans to if it's still a hopeful treatment.

OBI is hoping anyone who had COVID or even has it currently can sign up on their registry and donate now or down the road.

For more information you can head to OBI's official website.

Ashley Holden

Ashley Holden joined the News 9 team in June 2018. She's excited to call Oklahoma her new home. Before arriving at News 9, Ashley reported and anchored for three years at the NBC affiliate in Davenport, Iowa. While in the Quad Cities market, along the Ill

","published":"2020-04-17T06:32:01.000Z","updated":"2020-04-17T08:00:22.000Z","summary":"One Oklahoma City COVID-19 survivor is giving back, donating plasma with the hope he can help treat others with the virus. \"I don’t want anyone to go through this,\" said Gus Pekara. Almost a month after getting COVID-19, Gus is feeling thankful he w","affiliate":{"_id":"5cc353fe1c9d440000d3b70f","callSign":"kwtv","origin":"https://www.news9.com"},"contentClass":"news","createdAt":"2020-04-17T21:12:16.039Z","updatedAt":"2025-05-29T08:34:24.536Z","__v":17,"entities":[],"hasBeenCheckedForEntities":false,"openInNewWindow":false,"rendered":47,"peerReviewer":"5c7850eac1778925af4208da","peerReviewedOn":"2025-04-05T20:12:26.524Z","wordCount":300,"show":true,"link":"/story/5e9a1bb0e4143926e2c4494b/covid19-survivor-donates-plasma-warns-others-about-the-virus","hasSchedule":false,"id":"5e9a1bb0e4143926e2c4494b"};