Tecumseh Pastor Returns Home After 195-Day Fight With COVID

Tecumseh Pastor Tony Peake returned home Friday after fighting COVID-19 in hospitals for more than six months. 

“I am feeling great. I thought I’d never see this day,” he said from his living room, from the same spot where he initially collapsed back in November. 

Initially a doctor told Tony’s wife, Alicia, that the 67-year-old had a 10% chance of survival. 

Tony was in a hospital for 195 days, Alicia said, and spent months on a ventilator Tony. She said he had multiple close calls. 

“We have had three different times where they told us to call the family in, that he was going to pass away,” Alicia said. “It’s just an absolute miracle of God.” 

A crowd lined up along Highway 9 in Tecumseh Friday morning to welcome Tony home from his last stop, a rehab hospital in Ardmore. 

“He is a special personality,” friend Dennis Trahan said. “Not just a pastor. He knows the bible, he knows God, he knows everything, but he knows people.”

“I think that’s the reason he came home today. It’s because we prayed and he fought,” Trahan said. 

“It put a warm spot in my heart,” Tony said of the cheering crowd. “I was surprised people cared that much.” 

Tony thanked his friends, family, community and God for their prayers and his survival. 

“I was kind of resolved that I’d stay forever in a hospital or a nursing home. But God got us through all of it.” 

He said he hopes to return to giving sermons later this Summer.