Grateful Patient Allan Hunter Credits Hoag ICU Nurses for His Being Alive Today

Allan Hunter (age 55) is a serial entrepreneur who, with his long-time business partner, launched three successful businesses from scratch over the last 27 years. The last company he started, Rent.com , was sold to eBay and remains the largest and most profitable apartment listing site in U.S. 

A six-day-a-week distance runner, healthy eater,  lifelong non-smoker and non-drinker, Allan has only been sick twice in his life. Unfortunately, his two illnesses were "doozies" and the first illness exacerbated the second one, exponentially.

Allan contracted Stage IV throat cancer in early 2002 and after a rigorous treatment program of radiation, chemotherapy and surgeries at Hoag, Allan, through the grace of God and the brilliance of Dr. Neil Barth, beat his cancer and returned to an active, full life.

In December 2009, Allan was at Magic Mountain with his teenage son, Blake Hunter, where he contracted the H1N1 flu which promptly turned into an acute case of bi-lateral pneumonia. Allan checked into the ER at in very grave condition. The ER doctors promptly put him into a medically induced coma the day before New Year's Eve, and he remained in that coma for three weeks. While in the coma, he suffered multiple organ failure, sepsis, ARDS, and permanent damage to his speech and his ability to swallow.

Allan spent 100 days in the hospital and was given a 1 in 300 chance to survive. But survive he has. He gives tremendous credit for being alive today to the extraordinary nursing care he received in Hoag Hospital's ICU & Sub-ICU.