Early in pandemic, frantic doctors traded tips across oceans

Stephen Donelson, left, smiles as he walks up his driveway to his home accompanied by his wife, Terri, in Midlothian, Texas on Friday, June 19, 2020, after his 90-day stay in the Zale Hospital on the UT Southwestern Campus. Donelson’s family hadn’t left the house in two weeks after COVID-19 started spreading in Texas, hoping to shield the organ transplant recipient. Yet one night, his wife found him barely breathing, his skin turning blue, and called 911. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Terri Donelson, left, and her husband, Stephen, walk up their driveway to see friends and family awaiting him at his home in Midlothian, Texas on Friday, June 19, 2020, after his 90-day stay in the Zale Hospital on the UT Southwestern Campus. Donelson’s family hadn’t left the house in two weeks after COVID-19 started spreading in Texas, hoping to shield the organ transplant recipient. Yet one night, his wife found him barely breathing, his skin turning blue, and called 911. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

COVID-19 patient Stephen Donelson is applauded by family and health care professionals as he departs the Zale Hospital on the UT Southwestern Campus in Dallas, Friday, June 19, 2020. During his three-month hospital stay, Donelson spent 17 days on a ventilator. When it was removed, he was too weak to even sit without support and the breathing tube had taken away his ability to swallow. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Terri Donelson and her husband, Stephen, right, are greeted by friends, family and neighbors after his arrival at his home in Midlothian, Texas on Friday, June 19, 2020. A trick doctors around the world shared with each other: Flip COVID-19 patients over from their backs to their stomach. It’s called proning and it takes pressure off the lungs, which lie closer to the back. Donelson stayed on his belly about 16 hours a day early on, as his doctors watched his oxygen levels improve. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

FILE - In this Monday, March 16, 2020 file photo, a doctor watches a coronavirus patient under treatment in the intensive care unit of the Brescia hospital, Italy. Amid the chaos of the pandemic’s early days, doctors who faced the first COVID-19 onslaught reached across oceans and language barriers in an unprecedented effort to advise colleagues trying to save lives. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

FILE - In this Thursday, March 12, 2020 file photo, medical staff in work at one of the emergency structures that were set up to ease procedures at the Brescia hospital, northern Italy. Amid the chaos of the pandemic’s early days, doctors who faced the first coronavirus onslaught reached across oceans and language barriers in an unprecedented effort to advise colleagues trying to save lives. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Molly Gough, a speech therapist at the Zale Hospital on the UT Southwestern Campus speaks with patient Stephen Donelson as he departs the hospital in Dallas, Friday, June 19, 2020. He had undergone an organ transplant two years earlier, and the immune-suppressing drugs that prevent rejection of his new lungs and liver meant his body couldn’t fight the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)