Screenwriter Heidi Ferrer was “one of the healthiest, most vibrant people” her husband, Nick Güthe, had ever known, until her agonizing 13-month battle with severe long-COVID symptoms led her to end her life in May 2021. 

Following Ferrer’s death, Güthe shared her story in interviews on CNN and through Survivor Corps (a long-COVID advocacy group for whom Güthe has become a senior advisor) and made impassioned pleas to the government for treatment and services for long-COVID patients, as well as to the patients themselves to not give up hope. Güthe soon started receiving a flood of Twitter and Facebook messages from other desperate patients and their family members seeking answers and encouragement because their own doctors didn’t believe their symptoms were real.

The New Suicide Crisis

Though long COVID is now recognized as a real condition, Güthe says the avalanche of messages to his inbox has not stopped. Late at night on January 11, 2022, he received a desperate Twitter message from a man whose wife was in crisis. Like Ferrer, she had been battling long Covid and had told their eight-year-old daughter that she planned to kill herself. Her symptoms were nearly identical to Ferrer’s: neurological tremors and internal chest cavity vibrations that robbed her of sleep, brain fog so severe that she couldn’t retain new information, breathlessness and exhaustion, and many other ailments. Güthe called the man back immediately to offer support.

Standing helplessly by as his wife fought against despair, Güthe learned that long COVID doesn’t come on with a full-frontal attack; it slinks stealthily through the body, wreaking havoc as it goes. “Watching long COVID systematically take her apart, organ system by organ system,” he wrote, “was the most terrifying deterioration of a human being I have ever witnessed.” Ferrer is far from the only long-hauler who could no longer fight nor wait for relief. Two months before Ferrer took her life, Texas Roadhouse founder Ken Taylor also killed himself after a prolonged struggle with long COVID.

Focus on Mental Health and Symptom Relief

Though research proceeds at a feverish pace, immediately useful answers are slow to come. Güthe fears a sharp increase in suicides by long-COVID sufferers. The widespread devastation that would cause, he said, is incalculable. Significant progress must be made quickly to give people hope and the will to keep fighting. “Suicide is not like death from natural causes or even a ghastly accident,” he said. “It is planned and its psychological shrapnel wounds for generations. None of us – not me, my son, Heidi’s family and friends – will ever be the same. I am not trying to be an alarmist, but we are in a true crisis. The global medical community must band together to find answers for those suffering.” 

If you are in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor.

*Güthe, N. (2022, Jan. 12). My Wife Had Long Covid and Killed Herself. We Must Help Others Who Are Suffering. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/12/long-covid-wife-suicide-give-others-hope

Much about the novel coronavirus, i.e., COVID-19, is still not fully understood. As research progresses and our knowledge of the virus increases, information can change rapidly. We strive to update all of our articles as quickly as possible, but there may occasionally be some lag between scientific developments and our revisions.