CANAAN — Martin Wahl has been spending a lot of time at home over the past 12 days reading up on the Gospel of Matthew, in which Jesus instructs his disciples to go out into the world “to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.”
At the same time, Jesus warns his disciples they may only earn violent persecution from the authorities for their labors but to “not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”
The 70-year-old Wahl has been at home reflecting upon Jesus’ words for the courage required when facing adversity since March 6, when he tested positive at Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital for COVID-19.
Now, along with his wife of 43 years, Irene, and their 7-year-old grandson, Wahl is quarantined at his home in Canaan.
“You can’t fear this. You trust the Lord. He had today and tomorrow all planned out. Right now, he’s saying I got to take it easy and slow down a little bit. OK, I’m ready to do that. We just commit our ways to the Lord and it will work out,” Wahl said.
He had just come into the house to take a reporter’s phone call after having been outside in the yard with his grandson “beating around two old tennis balls with two old golf clubs.”
Wahl is “patient 3,” the third person in the Upper Valley to have contracted the new coronavirus, in his case from a fellow congregant at Hope Bible Fellowship church in West Lebanon.
Wahl said the fellow church member is a doctor in his 50s who works at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, who New Hampshire health officials have said had close contact with patient 1, a DHMC “physician trainee” who contracted the virus on a recent trip to Italy.
Health officials have said the fellow churchgoer was not aware at the time that he had been exposed, but shortly thereafter developed systems and tested positive.
Wahl, who has been a member of Hope Bible Fellowship for eight years, said he wasn’t sure how he contracted COVID-19 from patient 2 but said the fellow church member and his wife sat in front of them at church.
“We’re always shaking hands, hugging, goofing around,” Wahl said. “We’re a very friendly group.”
Now, the Wahls cannot leave their property and need to practice “social distancing” even within their own home — all three family members sleep in separate bedrooms — although neither Irene Wahl, who is 64, nor the couple’s grandson have shown any symptoms or been tested, Martin Wahl said.
“They both seem heathy,” Wahl said.
Although their behavior and movement is curtailed, Wahl — who said he has had no underlying health issues — said the three of them are learning to make the best of their limited freedom.
Wahl said he goes for walks in the woods and plays with Marley, the family’s old Afghan hound-shepherd mix, reads up on Civil War history, “eats oranges, drinks orange juice and Gatorade, drinks soup, twiddle our thumbs, watch a little TV and get some sleep.”
Groceries and other items are delivered to their doorstep by their grandson’s father, who works at Hypertherm, and they receive plenty of phone calls from other Hope Bible Fellowship members along with near-daily check-in phone calls from officials at the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services.
All in all, Wahl said, his spirits are good, under the circumstances.
“It feels like a mild flu but just lingered. It’s slowly getting better. My lungs seem to be OK. I don’t really feel I have pneumonia or anything. I’m just waiting for the health department to say we’re free to get out of this situation.”
The Wahl’s grandson “keeps us busy. He’s loving it. Are you kidding? He’s out of school and bouncing all over the place. He’s been exceptionally good.”
Wahl is a production manager at Harris Rebar on Route 4 in Canaan, where he has worked for more than 30 years. One of Wahl’s sons, an Enfield resident, also works at Harris Rebar.
“He’s been tested and it came back negative. He’s waiting for a second response from the state. He’s quarantined right now until he gets clearance. He’s only been out of work three days … he was in close contact with me,” Wahl said.
Tim Leonard, general manager of Harris Rebar in Canaan, confirmed that one employee had been diagnosed with COVID-19 and said the company was told over the weekend of March 7 and 8.
“Our number one priority is the safety of our teammates and their families,” Leonard said via email. “We have been working closely with local, state, and federal health authorities and adhering to all the protocols the NH Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control have outlined. We have briefed the NH HHS regarding the steps we have taken, and we will keep them informed on any developments.”
“No other teammates at the Canaan facility have been diagnosed with COVID-19,” Leonard said.
Harris Rebar employs about 25 people in Canaan, according to Wahl.
Wahl said he felt fine on Monday and Tuesday after the March 1 church service and went into work, but on Wednesday afternoon that week, “I was feeling a little funny, not really sick, I just felt kind of odd.”
By the time he got home that evening “I was starting to run a little temperature overnight and then by Thursday morning I was 101 or so, so I stayed home.”
He also called his pastor at Hope Fellowship Church that he wouldn’t be able to lead his regular Thursday night Bible group.
But the next day, Friday, March 6, Wahl said he was feeling well enough again to go back to work.
“I figured it was the 24-hour bug of some sort,” he said.
Then Wahl said at around noon on Friday he received a phone call from his pastor at work who — remembering he had called in sick the day before — said that state public health officials were trying to reach him because another member of the church had tested positive for COVID-19.
“They called me at work and said you’d better go home and set up a test at APD and to go in that afternoon,” Wahl said. “Then things started coming out what took place and I began to realize what was going on behind the scenes. I shouldn’t have gone back to work on Friday but I didn’t know that.”
Wahl said the DHMC worker who health officials have said unknowingly was carrying the virus and transmitted it at the West Lebanon church is staying in close touch and checking in with him.
“He calls about every day. He’s doing very well,” Wahl said.
John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com.
