Livonia father of 3 fighting for his life after COVID-19 caused lung failure

LIVONIA, Mich. – Chuck Robertson is known as the “bearded man.”

He is the father of three girls, Sophia, Allie and Faith. His daughters and their mother, Lisa, have rallied the Livonia community for prayers and hope because Robertson needs a lung transplant.

“We love dad so much and he would do anything for us so we’re going to make sure we do everything we can,” one of his daughters said.

After 40 days in the hospital and 27 days on a ventilator, doctors said Robertson can’t last much longer. Robertson needs an ECMO machine to become available at Henry Ford Hospital so he can be transferred.

ECMO stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. It’s similar to the heart-lung bypass machine used in open-heart surgery. It pumps and oxygenates a patient’s blood outside the body so the heart and lungs don’t have to do any work.

The ECMO machine would buy Robertson more time.

“We can’t believe in this great country that we’re literally waiting on a list for an actual machine for my Dad to live,” one of his daughters said.

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About the Authors

Jason is Local 4’s utility infielder. In addition to anchoring the morning newscast, he often reports on a variety of stories from the tragic, like the shootings at Michigan State, to the off-beat, like great gas station food.

Kayla is a Web Producer for ClickOnDetroit. Before she joined the team in 2018 she worked at WILX in Lansing as a digital producer.

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