KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The first person to test positive for COVID-19 in Riley County, Kansas, is reflecting on his virus journey and what life was like a year ago for him.
"At the end of that 10 days, things started to go a little... started to feel like something wasn't quite right," Andrew Smith said.
Smith is a Kansas State University professor. This time last year, he was in London with his family and some students on a study abroad trip. This trip would change his life forever.
"We got out on one of the last flights headed out of Europe to get back to United States. At that time, I wasn't feeling very well and my family wasn't feeling wasn't feeling great," Smith said.
But while in London, the group did take precautions like washing their hands often and sanitizing. Smith said at this time, nobody was talking about social distancing.
The family was going to quarantine when they landed. So, they asked a friend to drop off a car at the airport so they would have no contact with anyone.
"Literally that night we pulled into the driveway and as I'm pulling the luggage out of the car, I start coughing so badly that I have to take a knee," Smith said.
Smith and his entire family felt sick. He was the worst of them all, with a 103 degree fever and shortness of breath. He called their family doctor, who suggested they head to the emergency room to be tested.
They were all tested but Smith said the hospital only processed his results as he was the sickest and lab was afraid of getting overrun.
"Three days later, after struggling at home, even just to breathe with fevers up in 103 close to 104 we finally got the test back as a positive for me," Smith said.
He was the first person in Riley County to test positive for COVID-19 and admitted to the hospital.
The county announced it their first case. To help calm some fears, Smith put out a video while in the ICU describing what symptoms he had and how they took every precaution to stop the spread of the virus.
"As we came back into the US, we did every single thing that we could to make sure that we contacted zero people," Smith said.
He told 41 Action News he wanted to make sure people knew he was careful.
"We ended up having no community spread that as we tracked it," Smith said.
At the same time, the University of Kansas Health System had its first patient. On Monday, doctors reflected on what they discovered this past year.
"We've learned about new science and medicine. We've learned about new safety protocols and procedures, which have worked well to keep our patients safe, our employees safe," said Dr. Dana Hawkinson, University of Kansas Health System's medical director of infection prevention and control said.
Smith is reflecting on his journey as well. He is tweeting each day for the next several weeks about what he was doing exactly a year ago.
One year ago today I arrived in London leading a @kstatejmc study abroad class. I returned as the first #COVID19 case in @RileyCountyKS. Over the next three weeks I will describe day by day the thoughts and realizations as Covid changed my life and those around me. pic.twitter.com/lNQ8SqZTY2
— Drew Smith (@DrewSmithSports) March 7, 2021
He is doing this in hopes people will see his story and get perspective on these long 12 months.
"Now I'm just hoping that, as I kind of tell that story, that people look back at their own story and say this was either fortunate for me that I — that we've survived it that we've gotten this far, or at least can look back and say what did we learn," Smith said.
As of Monday morning, Riley County has 47 active COVID-19 cases. The county reports 6,231 total positive cases of the virus. The county's COVID-19 website lists that more than 4,300 people have been vaccinated.
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