COVID has hit the people of Westchester as hard as anywhere in the country. So it’s great to report on a COVID miracle of sorts, which happened over the course of several months at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mt. Kisco, NY.
Local restauranteur Gianni Piccolino, 53, is a man on a mission of gratitude after surviving COVID and an induced coma. He was admitted to Northern Westchester Hospital days before Thanksgiving, 2020, with a life-threatening case of COVID-19. He spent two months in an induced coma. On Christmas Eve, Mr. Piccolino underwent emergency surgery made necessary by an additional diagnosis of sepsis due to a perforated stomach ulcer.
His wife, Dianna and family came to the hospital on more than one occassion to say goodbye. “He almost died on Christmas Eve and we came to the hospital to say goodbye to him three times and every time that he was gonna past he made it through the next step and the next step,” said Dianna Piccolino.
Happily, just one day before his birthday on February 12, 2021, he was able to return home.
One year after he left Northern Westchester Hospital, Mr. Piccolino returned to say thank you to the hospital staff that helped save his life, by hosting a pre-Valentine’s Day thank you pizza party in the parking lot of the hospital. The portable wood burning pizza oven truck and salads from his two restaurants, Stone Fire in Mt. Kisco, and Basilico, were handed out to nurses, doctors and all hospital employees, who were grateful for the appreciation.
“Oh my God it feels amazing to be able to do this and give back,” said Gianni Piccolino, who gave away 400 pizzas at this event, and 10,000 free pizzas to first responders at the beginning of the pandemic.
“It’s just human nature,” Gianni Piccolino said. “People do nice things for you, you want to do nice things for them.”
North Westchester Hospital is important to the Piccolino family for other reasons: this is also the hospital where their twins were born.
