This 102-Year-Old Woman Survived the Coronavirus After Suffering Heart Failure

Emma Dibdin
·2 min read
Photo credit: CNN
Photo credit: CNN

From Prevention

  • Italica Grondona, an 102-year-old woman in Italy, has survived the coronavirus after getting admitted to a hospital with heart failure in early March.

  • She's since made a full recovery, prompting her impressed doctors to nickname her "'Highlander'—the immortal."

  • Grondona’s doctors also noted that she might be one of the few patients to have survived both the 1918 Spanish Flu and the coronavirus.

News about the coronavirus outbreak can be stressful, but a little jolt of positivity will help you focus on a brighter tomorrow. As CNN reports, a 102-year-old woman named Italica Grondona just survived the coronavirus in Italy.

Grondona, a resident of the city of Genoa in Northern Italy, was admitted to the hospital in early March, when she suffered from mild heart failure. Although she only had mild symptoms of the coronavirus, her doctors tested her and found that she was positive–and were subsequently amazed by her recovery.

"We did very little, she recovered on her own,” Grondona's doctor, Vera Sicbaldi, told CNN. The medical team were so impressed that they came up with a nickname for their miraculous patient: "We nicknamed her ‘Highlander’—the immortal."

In light of Grondona's birthdate in 1917, Sicbaldi also noted that she might be one of the few patients to have survived both the 1918 Spanish Flu and the coronavirus.

Grondona's nephew, Renato Villa Grondona, was also interviewed by CNN and touchingly discussed his aunt's love of both music and dance. “I don’t know what her secret is, but I know she is a free and independent woman,” he said.

And though Grondona’s miraculous recovery may be surprising, she's not a total anomaly. There have been other cases of very elderly and seemingly at-risk patients pulling through. A 101-year-old man, who was born amidst the Spanish flu pandemic, survived the virus in the Italian city of Rimini, per USA Today. As Gloria Lisi, vice mayor of Rimini, put it: "Even at 101 years, the future is not written."

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