Terry Hanratty, who helped lead Notre Dame to a national championship before winning two Super Bowl’s with the Steelers has beaten COVID-19.
Terry Hanratty helped guide Notre Dame to the 1966 national championship, throwing for 1247 yards that season with the Irish going 9-0-1 with the closest thing to a blemish being the famous 10-10 tie at Michigan State. In his three years playing for Notre Dame, Hanratty would finish in the top ten of Heisman Trophy voting three times, finishing third in 1968.
Hanratty would play two more seasons at Notre Dame before being drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1969 where he’d be a part of two Super Bowl winning teams before spending 1976 with the Tampa Bay Buccanneers.
Hanratty recently became ill will COVID-19, something he discussed openly on Tuesday’s “The Fight” in which Notre Dame raised funds for students with family members who have been effected by the virus. He discussed becoming ill, being hospitalized and ultimately recovering.
Hanratty on Getting Diagnosed with COVID-19:
“I went to get a B-12 shot. I get one about every three weeks, so it’s not a big deal. That evening I started feeling a little down. I figured maybe it was some kind of reaction with that shot. I’ve never had one in the past and I’ve been getting these shots for about five years. The next day I started feeling worse and told my doctor, and she knew my background obviously. 72 years old, former smoker, and she said she wanted me to go get my test for the Corona. That’s not a pleasant thing to go through, believe me. Then she also gave me a prescription for the medicine. She said, once you take your test, you go and start your medication and if your test is negative, you’ll stop, if it’s positive, then you keep going. So, obviously it came back positive. I tried to do it at home, but it just didn’t work. The fever was just horrible. I called my doctor and it happened on a Monday morning, and she said, come down to my office, but stay in my parking lot. I still had my pajamas on. So, I went down to her office and she took my temperature, it was 103, and my oxygen level had gone from 95 or 96 down to 85. She called the ambulance right there and said you’re going to the hospital. And so it was a little tense at the moment. I went to the hospital and then they started treating me. I went to Norwalk hospital here in Norwalk, Connecticut, and you can’t say enough about the help from the doctors on down. They’re just marvelous individuals. They’re caring. You put your faith in them and they really come through…Probably the biggest thing was the fever. You just could not shake it. They had four blankets on me and I was laying in bed just shivering. It wasn’t until the fever broke that you start feeling better. That took about three days, but luckily I was on the medicine. I thank my doctor because she got me on the medicine right away, so we didn’t let it last too long. I think the combination of that and plus going in the hospital and getting my oxygen regulated, I think that was a big factor.”
Glad to hear and see that Hanratty has beaten the virus and is feeling better.
