MANCHESTER – Township Police Sgt. Antonio Ellis continues to recover from his bout with the coronavirus which last year had him fighting for his life for 102 days.
He will soon be back on the beat full time having completely recovered and he is eager to get back to his regular police duties with the department.
Ellis’s duties include leading the department’s Traffic Safety Unit. He also served as an instructor at the Ocean County Police Academy and is an accredited traffic accident reconstructionist as well as a radar instructor.
His police experience also includes being a drug recognition expert, and he was successful in obtaining grants involving DWI prevention and the Move Over Law.
“I expect Antonio Ellis back to full duty,” Police Chief Lisa Parker said. “We all have to pinch ourselves when we see him at work a few days a week because he is carrying on as if he never left.”
Parker added, “he is busy with new projects, picked up old responsibilities as if he never left and always has a big smile which you can only tell by seeing his eyes because he wears his mask all of the time.”
“At the end of each day he does what he always did, he makes his rounds saying good night. Those ‘good night, see you tomorrow’ rounds were what we had to hold on to when he was sick. Antonio’s humor and daily jokes about sleeping through the pandemic and his only job was to live is just another testament to his live life to the fullest attitude,” Chief Parker said.
Ellis had some difficult times following his testing positive for the novel coronavirus around a year ago. He spent about a month on a ventilator while in a coma.
His physicians were desperate to save the 43-year-old man’s life. Up to that point, Ellis had been a relatively healthy man.
Health care experts at the hospital determined they could do all they could and that he needed additional assistance, so he was transported to health care specialists at Cooper University Hospital in Camden. That is where he was introduced to Dr. Nitin Puri who provides treatments for those with severe respiratory distress syndrome.
According to a report by the Courier Post, Dr. Puri used a therapy known as ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) as a treatment for Ellis. Thankfully, the officer responded to the treatment which is used for certain patients who sustain lung distress after contracting the coronavirus.
It only provided a 50/50 chance of survival, however.
Ellis got quite a fanfare when he returned to his Toms River home on June 17, 2020 from Magee Rehabilitation Jefferson Health in Philadelphia. He was very happy to be reunited with his wife Carla and children after six weeks of intensive physical therapy to regain his strength.
Throughout Ellis’s ordeal, Manchester Township Mayor Ken Palmer was providing updates on his condition to the public on his Mayor’s Facebook page. Those updates included the bad news as well as the good news. One high point was that he had been deemed well enough to go back home last June.
Ellis received quite a send off that day. After being released from Magee, Philadelphia police provided him an escort out of town and all the way back to Manchester’s police headquarters. Once there, he received a royal reception by township employees and by his fellow police officers.
The husband and father also got a nice welcome back from his brothers in blue from the Ocean County Sheriff’s Department and police officers of Lakewood and Toms River.
On the day of his arrival home from the hospital, neighbors and area residents were on the street. Many were wearing T-shirts that read “364 Strong.” That number represents the officer’s badge number. The music of several bagpipers was heard as they performed for him. Residents and friends signed a large banner that hung outside his home.
A police helicopter did a flyover in tribute to his return and he was welcomed back on the Facebook page of the Ocean County’s Sheriff’s Office. “Our office was honored to escort him home with our fellow brothers and sisters. Miracles do happen and prayers work. God Speed!” a post stated.
Mayor Palmer noted “everyone in town hall and local law enforcement took a collective sigh of major relief. Antonio has been in a fight for his life.”
Chief Parker said, “he is our miracle and we love him.”
