Jeff Bennett is a COVID-19 survivor. The Lexington County business owner was diagnosed with the novel coronavirus at Lexington Medical Center in March. His condition worsened to the point where he needed to be on a ventilator.

Inside Lexington Medical Center's Critical Care Unit, doctors gave Mr. Bennett an innovative treatment known as therapeutic plasma exchange. This innovative and aggressive treatment replaces a sick patient’s “inflamed” plasma with standard “clean” plasma. The idea is that plasma from a healthy person can help a patient fight COVID-19. Lexington Medical Center was one of only a handful of hospitals in the nation using this type of plasma exchange for COVID-19 patients.

In this video, Mr. Bennett and his wife share their COVID-19 story.

Therapeutic plasma exchange has been used for many years for other conditions, but medical intensive care physicians at Lexington Medical Center have used it since late 2019 for patients with septic shock and multiple organ failure. In March, they started using it for patients with COVID-19.

Therapeutic plasma exchange is different than the more widely used convalescent plasma, which transfuses plasma from a recovered COVID-19 patient.

COVID-19 alters chemical communicators in the body that help fight infection. Lexington Medical Center doctors think the donor plasma may be able to tell the body how to fight the infection and mitigate the body’s response to it.

Lexington Medical Center is thankful to the community for its kindness and support as hospital clinicians work to take care of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.