Cape Central grad survives coronavirus, takes up personal mission to help others

Walter Lamkin, Cape Girardeau Central class of 1968, is a coronavirus survivor on a mission.

“I was fortunate enough to get through COVID-19 relatively unscathed,” said Lamkin, 69, a St. Louis real estate lawyer who contracted the virus last month in Vail, Colorado.

“Two of my friends, though, didn’t make it, and I’m going to do all I can to help sufferers,” Lamkin said.

Lamkin grew up one of six children and recalls fondly when the Central schools used to allow students to leave campus at lunchtime.

“I spent so much time at Wimpy’s,” Lamkin said, referring to the long-shuttered landmark hamburger joint and grocery store once at the intersection of Cape Rock and Kingshighway.

Walter Lamkin, a Cape Girardeau native and recent coronavirus survivor, is seen working as a volunteer member of the Ski Patrol in Vail, Colorado, in this undated photo.Submitted

“I used to take my chemistry teacher there,” Lamkin added, “because I wanted to get a ‘C” in the class.”

Lamkin went to Vail for a month Feb. 5.

Within two weeks, he began to feel unwell.

“I had a sinus infection, a bad nighttime fever and was so cold, I couldn’t get warm,” he recalled.

After using a Z-Pak medicine for five days, Lamkin felt better.

In the last weekend of February, he developed a cough.

Lamkin tried to push through his distress because early March in Vail is a busy time.

“During the first week of the month, we have a party every year,” said Lamkin, “and (the event) has been going on for 35 years.”

Lamkin serves as a volunteer mountain host in Vail and attended a luncheon for the ski patrol March 5.

“I got an email less than a week later from the Eagle County (Colorado) Health Department telling me someone who was at the lunch possibly may have the coronavirus,” Lamkin said.

Back home in Town and County, Missouri, by this time, Lamkin had a nasal swab taken.

“It wasn’t frozen as it should have been and the result was inconclusive,” Lamkin said.

Lamkin quickly arranged to fly family home who were visiting overseas after President Donald Trump’s announcement March 11 most travel from Europe would be restricted.

Lamkin canceled a planned trip to Costa Rica for a wedding due to the uncertainty.

“I got tested on March 14th by St. Louis’ Mercy Health System and they called back on the 18th to say the result was inconclusive,” Lamkin said.

Tested again on the 19th, the result came back two days later — positive for COVID-19.

“On the very same day I came back positive,” Lamkin said, “I got word that one of my Vail friends who had been airlifted to Denver died of coronavirus.

“I know for certain at least 25 of my friends who had been there in Vail the first week of March tested positive, too,” he said.

“No one knows, though, exactly where it got transmitted,” Lamkin said.

Lamkin said his wife, Sharon, tested negative and no one else in their home got COVID-19.

On April 2, the St. Louis County Health Department sent Lamkin a letter.

“They cut me loose from quarantine,” Lamkin said. “I was cleared.”

When Lamkin’s physician at Mercy, Dr. Emily Schindler, called him April 4 with a proposal, he leaped at it.

“Dr. Schindler asked if I would consider donating my (blood) plasma to COVID-19 sufferers.

“I could not have looked at myself in the mirror if I had said no.”

Two days after Schindler’s call, Lamkin gave 600 milliliters of plasma.

“The doc told me three COVID patients were helped by the donation and two of them are off the respirator,” Lamkin said.

Maria Stevenson, executive director of the Red Cross of Southeast Missouri, said donors can expect a total wait time of no more than an hour to give.

“For the safety of everybody, a donation is (now) a one-to-one experience,” Stevenson said, citing the precaution protocol the organization has put in place during the pandemic.

“We take whole blood and spin it down to remove plasma and platelets,” she added.

The Red Cross reports 1,120 blood drives have been called off regionally due to the anxiety over the pandemic, part of nearly 20,000 cancellations nationwide.

Lamkin’s message about donating is straightforward.

“If you have had the virus, you now have the antibodies,” he said, “and there should be nothing keeping you from helping somebody else.”

A donation appointment may be made online at RedCrossBlood.org.

Lamkin said he will be back to give more plasma in four weeks, which is the required wait time before the next donation.

Lamkin said as a mountain host, he wears a tag identifying his hometown as Cape Girardeau.

“I’ll bet 50 people have come up to me and asked, ‘Do you know Rush Limbaugh’?” referring to the famous radio talk show host originally from Cape.

“I tell them Rusty and I are the same age, but he was a year behind me (at Central),” Lamkin said.