MATTITUCK, NY — Horns honking and flags flying high under bright, sunny skies, a steady stream of cars headed down Elijahs Lane in Mattituck Thursday as scores of joyful North Fork residents turned out to welcome home one of their own — back after a long battle with coronavirus.

According to all accounts, David Steele, 63, a farmer known for his huge heart and dedication, defied all the odds: His daughter Kristin Payano said he spent three weeks on a ventilator in ICU at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, two weeks on a regular COVID floor, and two weeks at the Westhampton Care Center. “Dad is a fighter and kicked COVID’s a–,” she said. “We are so happy to have him home!”

Of the long line of well-wishers who drove past his home Thursday to salute a hometown hero and welcome home their “Man of Steele”, Kristin said: “Words can’t express how thankful our family is for everyone’s love and support! Wow! That was some parade! Thank you for helping us welcome our father, papa, and husband home. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to be there. Thanks to all that helped with the parade. We are thankful that our dad was able to come home — and our heart goes out to all those families whose loved ones didn’t make it home or are fighting this terrible virus.”

She added that the parade was a warm sight for hearts weary after a long two months: “We had big trucks, work trucks, garbage trucks, pool trucks, fire trucks, oil trucks, old cars, burn-outs, ATVs cute kids, families, farmers, neighbors, our family. It doesn’t get better than that,” Kristin said.

Steele, a Mattituck High School graduate, had no other health issues when he was diagnosed with coronavirus, Kristin said. For about a week before he was first hospitalized at Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital, her father was tired, with uncharacteristic headaches, a cough, and then, a fever, she said.

He was admitted to SBELIH on Friday, March 20 and by Saturday night, his blood oxygen levels were going down, so he was intubated and then transported to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, where he was a patient through April 24.

The long weeks, Kristin said, were filled with fear. “It was scary,” she said. “He was able to speak with us from his cell phone while he was in the hospital Friday, but once he was intubated, we didn’t talk to him for three weeks. Until he got off the ventilator, we could not talk to him.”

Her family, including her mother Sherry, her brother Kyle, who lives in Mattituck, and her older brother David, who lives in Virginia with his family, banded together to help one another: Kristin, who lives on Shelter Island with her young children, would bring the kids to her mom’s house in Mattituck, backing the van up to the driveway so they could wave signs that Sherry could see through the door. “We still practiced social distancing but we tried to comfort each other, even though we weren’t hugging, or holding each other,” she said.

Other days, Kristin would bring her children to the farm — her father, she said, now grows hay and straw; he was once a potato farmer — so that they could play tag, “be silly,” and try to lift their grandmother’s spirits, from a safe distance away. “It was hard,” she said. “All they want is to hug and love my mom and they can’t.”

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The days passed with her father on the ventilator, and the uncertainty mounted. Her family was told that patients were only kept on a ventilator normally for 10 days, but some COVID patients were on for about two weeks. “And it was getting close to that,” she said.

Until Easter weekend.

On Friday night, Kristin said, they were going to take out the tube but her father’s heart rate went up and the hospital staff had to wait.

The task was performed successfully on Saturday morning, the day before Easter.

“His doctor told me, ‘Your father is my Easter miracle,'” Kristin said. “He said, ‘I wish I could hug you.’ I told him, ‘When this is over, I am coming to hug you.'”

The next day, Kristin said, staff at the hospital put the phone up to her dad’s ear. “He was so weak. He obviously wasn’t able to talk, but my mom was able to talk to him, saying, ‘We love you. Everything is fine. Keep getting stronger, so you can get home.'”

The entire staff at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, Kristin said, “was amazing.” Even though they couldn’t speak to her father, the staff updated them frequently and kept a sense of normalcy even in the most challenging of times. “We told them every day, ‘Please tell him his family loves him.'”

Her parents, Kristin said, will mark their 40th wedding anniversary next year.

Sherry, Dave’s wife, said after many dark weeks, “I’ll be happy today when I see my husband.” For so long, she said, her only glimpses of her beloved Dave were through windows, as she stood outside his hospital room and later, on the lawn outside the Westhampton Care Center. “I could barely see him,” she said.

The past weeks, she said, have been “a nightmare, an absolute nightmare. I wasn’t able to talk to him for three-and-a-half weeks. We had to wait for the doctor to call every day; we didn’t know on a daily basis if he was going to make it or not. It was extremely scary and there were so many ups and downs, because it was so new.”

Her husband, she said, was one day away from being taken off the ventilator and undergoing a tracheotomy, she said. When she heard he’d been taken off the vent, she said, “I cried and cried.”

Of the many who turned out for his homecoming, Sherry said it’s no surprise. “He’s very easygoing. He does a lot for people. He’s just that kind of person; he’ll do anything for anyone. So many people love him. He’s going to be shocked by how many turn out today.”

Sherry thanked her children for “stepping up to the plate”; her son Kyle, she said, took over the farm as well as running his own landscaping business; her son in Virginia made calls regarding insurance and banking; and her daughter has been a constant source of help with the doctors and medical staff.

The North Fork community, Sherry added, “is amazing.”

In the hours leading up to the moment when she could go pick up her husband, Sherry said, “I can’t even describe how excited I am, just to wrap my arms around him. I start crying when I think about it. I just want to tell him, ‘I love you.’ I’m going to be so happy to see him. I know I’m going to cry. I just want to hold him.”

Her husband, she said, was equally excited to be headed back to the North Fork. “He asked me this morning, ‘Hon, do you have enough gas?’ He was joking; he didn’t want there to be anything to stop him from getting home.”

If anyone could beat COVID-19, Kristin said, it was her father, who had the inner stamina to fight the virus.

“He’s tough; all these farmers are stubborn,” she said. “He’s a fighter. He’s retired military, too – he was in the Air Force.”

After he was off the ventilator, she said, her father had no memory of being dropped off at the hospital or of what happened during the long days after. “He’s putting the pieces together,” she said.

Reflecting on the experience, Kristin said her father’s homecoming was especially sweet based on the unfamiliar territory her family traversed.

“We’re so excited,” she said. “Honestly, we didn’t think was going to happen. We thought we were going to have to say good-bye to our dad. This really is a miracle. We thought we weren’t going to see him again.”

When her father was being transported to the Westhampton Care Center, Kristin and her mom sat outside the hospital with signs, thanking the staff at Stony Brook Southampton for saving her father’s life. One staffer, she said. even told him, “You were that guy — we didn’t think you were going to make it.'”

(Courtesy Carly Doorhy)

Her children — her son is four and her daughter is two, Kristin said — are thrilled to see “Papa.”

“They’re excited,” she said. “My son would cry, ‘I don’t want Papa in the hospital anymore. I want him home.'”

Kristin and her mom have made signs for him throughout his whole COVID-19 journey. At Stony Brook Southampton, as soon as her dad could sit up, Kristin said they’d stand outside “and he’d wave to us out the window.”

(Courtesy Denise Thilberg)

Later, when he was at the Westhampton Care Center, again, Kristin, her mom and the kids would stand outside the window, the children playing in the grass.

Her family’s lives have changed in many ways since their father was diagnosed with coronavirus, Kristin said. “Life is precious. You never know what’s going to happen.”

Of her father, Kristin said: “We just want him to know that we love him. He’s a fighter — and we’re so proud of him.”