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Ristrim Describes COVID-19 Experience

NASA DC-8 maintenance crew members nspect the aircraft before takeoff.
NASA DC-8 maintenance crew members Scott Silver (from left), Paul Ristrim and Mike Lakowski inspect the aircraft before takeoff. Credits: NASA Photo / Jim Ross

Paul Ristrim explained what it was like for him living with COVID-19. He was one of the speakers at a recent virtual Safety Day event at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California.

“I first began to feel some slight sinus inflammation and sneezing on June 17,” said Ristrim, an Armstrong quality assurance specialist. “I continued teleworking because I didn’t feel I was sick, but two days later I had a fever. It started as a low-grade fever of about 99 F and went to 100.5 F. By Monday, June 22, I was starting to really feel the effects of the fever it went up to 102.9 F later in the week.”

The fever wouldn’t break, so he consulted with a physician online and explained his symptoms. Following that conversation, he went for drive through testing that afternoon. A nasal swab sample test confirmed he had COVID-19.

Fortunately, Ristrim’s family didn’t get the virus. He quarantined himself in the master bedroom to protect Mirna Jimenez, his significant other, and contacted his niece and nephew about contracting the COVID-19.

Since then he has been tracing his steps in an effort to understand how he contracted the virus. On his day off June 12, he had taken a trip to Gardena to a scaffolding yard, where he was wearing a mask and taking precautions. However, he recalled going into the office to sign an invoice and he thinks it might have been a mistake to sign the invoice with a pen potentially used by others.

Ristrim’s next stop was to visit his niece and nephew in Gardena. No one was sick, so he took the opportunity to visit them. He said he did not wear a mask when he was playing with his nephew. The family went to a restaurant and he was wearing a mask to the table. However, he did not wash his hands before eating grilled chicken with his hands. From there he opened the car door for Jimenez, came home and “everything that weekend was fine.”

Another possibility could have been grocery shopping and cutting into an unwashed orange and eating it, he said. Regardless of how he contracted it, his symptoms emerged five days from the trip and grocery shopping.

“It was different from the flu with that fever for the whole weekend,” Ristrim recalled. “I usually get sick for maybe a day to a day and a half and feel better. I also lost complete sense of taste and smell. Everything tasted like mush.”

As virus progressed, he said he became weaker and weaker as a result of the constant fever. In the early morning hours of day 11, he felt different and his temperature returned to normal and he started feeling a little better and stronger. By July 9 he regained some strength, his taste back and he resumed telework.”

His advice to others on COVID 19 is simple.

“Don’t drop your guard for a second,” Ristrim said. It’s real, it’s out there and it’s looking for a host.”