Water Supervisor James Cutler: Having COVID ‘woke me up’
When the pandemic broke out in the spring of 2020, City employee James Cutler wasn’t worried about it.
Only older people and those with underlying medical issues were suffering serious consequences from the virus, he reasoned, and Cutler was a healthy, fit, 48-year-old at the top of his game.
It was for these reasons that he decided to not get vaccinated for the virus — a decision he would later regret.
Cutler, who serves as senior supervisor with the City’s Water Distribution/Wastewater Departments, was diagnosed with COVID-19 in July after contracting it from his son, who had recently attended a camping event.
Within days, his son was fine, but Cutler, who developed pneumonia caused by the virus, was left unable to work for a month or perform even the most rudimentary of tasks.
“(My son) lost his taste and smell and kind of felt bad, but within two or three days he’s running up and down the stairs and he’s fine,” Cutler said. “But what he gave me, it knocked me down hard.”
Cutler shared the story of his recent bout with the virus during a COVID Safety Training held for City employees earlier this month.
The event, which focused on educating employees about what COVID is and how to reduce the chances of contracting and spreading it to others, also included featured speaker Dr. Joshua Gentges, D.O., MPH, who explained how the virus has changed since the pandemic began early last year and advocated for vaccination as the single most effective protection available to date. (See below for more information.)
Cutler couldn’t agree more. He says his decision to forego the vaccines when they first became available was a mistake he has wished many times he hadn’t made.
“I felt foolish,” he told employees last week. “I’m bull-headed. I’m a mule. You know, I am. I don’t want to do anything I don’t want to do. But (having COVID) woke me up.”
The Bartlesville Community Center auditorium, where the training was held, fell silent as Cutler emotionally recounted his worst days with the virus, when he was so sick that he and his wife were planning his funeral services.
“I would get up to try to go to the bathroom or downstairs to eat … and I would have to yell at my wife because I can’t breathe. You guys know, man, if you can’t breathe, that’s a scary place to be in.”
He said his wife, who works in the medical industry, would have to calm him down and urge him to breathe to “stay here.”
“She said, ‘Babe, don’t leave me. Keep fighting.’ When you look,” Cutler said, pausing to regain composure, “at your wife and know all I had to do was do something for myself and know that I’m leaving — because that’s where I was going, we were (making) funeral plans — that’s hard for me to handle. I’m supposed to be here to protect her and my family.
“I was ignorant enough that I about lost everything, and they about lost everything. Man, it woke me up. I wished I had studied it more, I wished I had gotten the vaccine. I wished I had done something to protect myself.”
Cutler said his wife and daughter, who is attending nursing school, opted to receive the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and did not contract the virus despite their close proximity to him during his illness.
“Neither one of them got sick,” he said, noting that his mother-in-law, who is vaccinated, got COVID-19 but recovered quickly. “She got it, and she got a little sick. The second day, she’s out there mowing.”
But for the unvaccinated, Cutler said, he has seen first-hand how devastating the virus — and in particular the Delta variant — can be.
“We’ve got a family member that just lost their 25-year-old boy,” he said. “And we’ve got (a friend) in Weatherford, Oklahoma — he’s a coach, he’s 35, and, now, he’s in great shape. He runs, lean body mass, he was the same way (regarding vaccination): ‘I’m not going to get it.’ He just passed away.
“So this is different now, and this is different from what we heard in the beginning. It is different for me now, because I’m not going to make that mistake again.”
Cutler said he is sharing his story in hopes that it will encourage his fellow employees to take steps to protect themselves and others against COVID-19.
“If there’s just one of you that makes a change and decides to do something — wear that mask more often or go get vaccinated to protect you and to protect your family — then it’s worth me getting up here and being nervous and talking about this,” he said. “I’ve seen it first-hand — not on Facebook, not from somebody telling me. It got me down … I don’t want to see you guys like that, with your loved ones and your family coming in and you’ve got to sit there and talk about your funeral. It’s a scary thing.”
Cutler says he plans to get vaccinated as soon as he is able.
“Probably everybody’s going to get sick — how bad, who knows,” he said. “But man, I would not gamble on it. I guarantee you, I fought it (getting vaccinated). I thought, ‘No, I’ll fight through it and be fine.’ And that wasn’t the case with me.”
COVID-19 vaccinations are available at several locations throughout Washington County. Contact your local health care provider, health department, Tribe or pharmacy for more information.