WHITING, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa couple who have been married for nearly 70 years are back home after they both recovered from bouts of COVID-19. The Omaha World-Herald reports that 88-year-old Bert McCandless and his 89-year-old wife, Ardis, contracted the disease caused by the coronavirus in March. Both were hospitalized at Creighton University Medical Center-Bergan Mercy, where Bert nearly didn’t make it.

Ardis spent three days in the hospital in late March, but as she started to get better, Bert’s condition worsened. He was placed on a ventilator for two weeks and doctors estimated he had no better than a 20% chance of surviving.