Hospital stay leaves local wishing he’d been vaccinated

After near-death experience, Steele encourages others to trust in the science and take vaccine

Billy Steele is a familiar voice to many morning commuters who tune in to his radio show each weekday as he and co-host Wendell Miller joke around and spin oldies on WKYA. Miller had to go it alone for a few weeks this month, as Steele fought for his life in a hospital bed, ill for the second time with covid-19.

The first time Steele had covid-19, it was about a year ago. He woke up one morning and could hardly move. “I was hurting from the top of my head to the bottom of my shoes,” he said. After about three days he recovered but with the symptoms such as loss of taste and smell, he knew he had been sick with the virus.

Earlier this month Steele fell ill again, this time with a serious case of what doctors told him was a variant of the virus. He spent five days at Owensboro Health Muhlenberg Community Hospital, including 48 hours in the intensive care unit. This time, he also had to face the regret he felt for not getting vaccinated, as he and eleven other members of his family were diagnosed with covid-19. His son was also hospitalized, and has since recovered.

“I’ve never been so close to death,” Steele said, as doctors told him he had a 50/50 chance of surviving. He is a 64-year-old Type 2 diabetic and suffers from hypertension, but he thought he had time to get vaccinated and didn’t act right away.

“I was given counsel to get the vaccine, from trustworthy people, by people who I know and love,” Steele said. He joked Wendell Miller, his radio co-host, is known to be the stupid one, but encouraged him to get vaccinated. “He got the vaccine, and he begged me every day to get it. I did not pay attention. I overruled it with foolishness and inaccuracy.”

Steele said he never challenged the virus, and didn’t pass up the vaccine for any particular reason. He said he thought he had time to get it, since he had been sick with covid-19 and likely had antibodies from the first illness. Explaining to people he had been so sick when he could have been vaccinated was a tough thing to do.

“The problem with this whole scenario is that it became political. You know, my mother told me when I was really young that she was so afraid of having children because of polio. And I remember when we got that little cube of sugar, we went and got that every time,” Steele said, remembering when the polio vaccine was given to children on a sugar cube. “My mother was big on inoculations, and I think most people in this country are, unit it gets political.”

Propaganda and false information that spreads quickly on social media is also a problem, Steele said. “These people on the internet who are saying these crazy things should be held accountable for spreading that stuff, those lies and misinformation, and spreading fear unnecessarily.”

Steele said he supports the freedom of speech, but with that freedom comes responsibility, and consequences. “These people are putting stuff out that I know is not true, and it’s killing people. This thing is real. I wish I’d never waited because that has set a terrible example. I would never challenge this thing, but I procrastinated, foolishly.”

Steele said he believes in the science behind the different covid-19 vaccines, and thought as a community and as a nation we should rely on science. “We’re smarter than this, and for some reason we have people challenging it with something they heard or read on the internet.”

Many have died before the vaccine was available, including friends of Steele’s. As a nation we used to stand in line to get vaccines, Steele said, and we pride ourselves on being ahead of the rest of the world and showing the rest of the world how to do things. “We’ve really dropped the ball this time, because so many people died before the vaccine came around, and we’re stalling.”

Steele is back on the air now, and back to cutting hair at his shop, Billy Steele’s Hair Station in Greenville. He said he hopes he can help people realize it’s time to get vaccinated, and plans to speak about it on his morning radio show. He knows he will have some friends who will be upset with him, because of statements he’s made on his show. “But if I can change just one person’s mind, I’m going to,” he said.

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