North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset is using a drug that is being touted as potential breakthrough medication that can save severely ill COVID-19 patients.

Dr. Hugh Cassiere is the director of critical care medicine at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset. When the pandemic hit, doctors were searching for medications that would help.

"We really didn't have anything to use to treat the sickest patients," said Cassiere.

One of those patients was 66-year-old Ron Panzok who's since been released from the hospital and is now in rehab. He was on a ventilator for six weeks but couldn't be weaned off. Doctors told his daughter he probably wouldn't survive.

"I said please, if it's either death or trying something experimental, I said, anything you can try let's just try anything you can possibly think of," said Dr. Amy Harel, Panzok's daughter.

Cassiere tried dexamethasone, and it worked. It is a steroid that has been used since the 1960s to treat rheumatoid arthritis, asthma and other conditions. It is also the subject of what's being called a promising new study conducted by researchers at Oxford University. It is considered relatively inexpensive and globally available.

"About a third of my patients seem to respond, which jives with the study that's coming out about 30% to 35% of the patients it helped," said Cassiere.

Cassiere says even without the Oxford study, he would still use dexamethasone on patients during a second wave. But he says if the preliminary study results do pan out, he now knows can use a lower dose going forward.

Harel said her father is "making great strides."

"He's ready to live each day as if it's a new life. It's a gift for him," she said.

According to the study, called the Recovery Trial, the drug does not seem to help patients who don't need help with their breathing.

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