News
Maryland hospital opens pulmonary rehab center with help from Koppels
Washington Post
St. Mary’s Hospital in Leonardtown, MD, opened a new pulmonary and cardiac rehabilitation center with the help of a veteran television newsman and his wife.
Ted Koppel, former anchor of ABC’s “Nightline” and commentator for National Public Radio and BBC America, and his wife, Grace Anne Dorney Koppel, cut the ribbon on the center as a packed atrium of hospital staff members and guests cheered.
Grace Anne Dorney Koppel talks about pulmonary rehabilitation at the opening ceremony
“Last year, Ted Koppel approached the hospital with the idea of opening the center in his wife’s name,” said Joan Gelrud, the hospital’s vice president.
Grace Koppel is a national advocate for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s Learn More Breathe Better Campaign, which raises awareness about chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Her disease was diagnosed in 2001. She gave the dedication speech, recounting her battle to catch her breath.
“I was looking at the face of death seven years ago,” Koppel said in an interview after her speech. “Even when I was standing still, I could not catch my breath.”
Koppel said that she stopped smoking two decades ago but that COPD was diagnosed in 2001.
At the center opening ceremony, from left, Ted Koppel, Diane Walsh, Alpha-1 Foundation President & CEO John Walsh, Grace Anne Dorney Koppel
She said she was told to prepare to die within five years. But with the help of rehabilitative exercise, she said, she increased her lung capacity from 26 percent then to 60 today. She said that while the disease is incurable, it is treatable and manageable.
