GUTTENBERG — Cheers and Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” rang through the halls of Guttenberg Municipal Hospital on Jan. 15 as staff bid adieu to their longest COVID-19 patient.

Royce Hansel, 76, of Elkader, was released after a 65-day stay. He was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Nov. 8 and checked into the hospital just days later.

“I feel super,” Hansel told the Telegraph Herald as he was preparing to leave. “I couldn’t ask for better people to take care of me. I can’t say enough about them.”

Hospital staff lined the halls and held homemade signs as Hansel was pushed in a wheelchair to the hospital lobby. Everyone then went outside to see Hansel as he was driven away with an ambulance escort. He still had a breathing tube in his nose as he left.

In a last-minute surprise, several of Hansel’s family members drove past the glass hospital doors to wave to him as he left the facility. Besides his wife, Janan, he hasn’t seen any family since entering the hospital, including a great-grandson that was born in November.

Hansel was admitted to the hospital after developing a COVID-19-related case of pneumonia. He was in critical condition for the first month of his hospital stay.

Respiratory therapist and hospital Rehabilitation Manager Amy Sitzmann took care of Hansel frequently over those 65 days. She said the hospital was very busy around the time Hansel came in, with six or seven other critical COVID-19 patients already there. None of the patients could be transferred to bigger hospitals due to lack of available bed space. Sitzmann said there were several times staff wasn’t sure if Hansel would make it. Parts of his lungs closed on themselves early in his stay, she said, and his oxygen levels often dropped when he tried to sit or stand. At several critical moments, the hospital made an exception for Hansel’s wife to visit him so he could hear her voice.

“It was important to his care that he saw her and knew he was going home to her,” Sitzmann said.

But hospital staff across multiple departments were able to work together to help Hansel improve, including through physical and occupational therapy. Sitzmann said some staff changed their shifts to help take care of patients like Hansel, and she started working more night shifts to help out. Many of the staff’s signs made for Hansel’s parade had messages of “We will miss you,” a sentiment shared by Sitzmann, who said she would love to keep Hansel as her adoptive grandfather.

“He didn’t give up. We didn’t give up,” Sitzmann said with tears in her eyes.