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When the "neighborhood dad" went missing, people noticed. 

Anthony Riley, who goes by Cooley, is known for helping out when a family needs a ride to the grocery store, a kid needs a ride to an activity or a parent needs a ride to a job. 

But the rides stopped abruptly in late May. 

When Cooley returned to his southeast St. Cloud, Minn., home after dropping a daughter off at work, he was out of sorts: The usually robust and healthy man was standing uneasily in the doorway. 

"He said, 'I don't feel good. I feel like I got hit with a tow truck,'" said Dottie Riley, Cooley's wife. 

The next day, the 61-year-old was admitted to St. Cloud Hospital's COVID-19 Medical Unit.

Two days later, he was transferred to intensive care, where he spent 33 days intubated and on a ventilator. 

"They called me and was like, 'His breathing is failing,'" Dottie said. "It happened so fast. I couldn't believe it. So, I got to call all these kids of mine and tell them their dad had to be put on life support."

Dottie and Cooley, who moved to St. Cloud in 2005, have 11 children, four of whom are adopted. None of them could visit because of restrictions related to the pandemic.

"I couldn't go. It was the worst time of my life," she said. "I had never been through nothing like that in life. That just tore me up, I'm telling you, just physically and mentally."

Cooley has been home for about three weeks — but his life post-COVID-19 barely resembles the time when he was active in church, working with Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Minnesota and volunteering to chauffeur his neighbors. 

"It's a slow process of healing," Dottie said, noting his muscles deteriorated during his time on life support. He now has trouble walking, issues with his eyesight and has difficulty opening medicine bottles or water bottles, Cooley said. 

"I feel all right. But I'm still sick and weak," Cooley said. 

Cooley said he doesn't remember anything from his days in the intensive care unit. He remembers a doctor saying he needed to go to the hospital on May 20 — and then he remembers being taken down to rehabilitation after he was out of the ICU. 

Still, Cooley knows how lucky he is to be home. The family thanks God every day. 

"A lot of people didn't make it," he said. "I guess we ain't made it through my journey yet. I guess I still got work to do."

But work he knows. It earned him his reputation as the "neighborhood dad," as Dottie calls him, and a community partner award from the Roosevelt Boys and Girls Club in 2018. 

Christine Kustelski, director of clubs for Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Minnesota, said the Rileys and their children have been deeply involved with the clubs over the years. One daughter, Anthonia, was recently one of the Clubs' first CareerSTART graduates and another daughter, Kennethia, was a Youth of the Year in 2018. 

"There are so many people in this community that are connected to the Riley family and that they have done, for lack of a better word, outreach to and really making people feel welcome in the community," Kustelski said. 

Kutelski, along with unit directors from the Roosevelt and Eastside clubs, attended a prayer circle for Cooley at Hester Park on June 5. It was a simple gesture to show the Riley family how the community is supporting Cooley, just as he has supported the community for so many years. 

"My experience with Cooley and that family is there are so many people in this community that rely on him to help them: the transportation he does for some of their families, some of their kids, he also does for adults so they can get to work and they can get to the grocery store," Kutelski said. "That's not just who he is but his entire family. 

"He's been kind of a gift, I think, to our community." 

The day Cooley was admitted to St. Cloud Hospital, he was one of 566 Minnesotans requiring hospitalization due to the novel coronavirus, according to data from the Minnesota Department of Health. 

Since the start of the pandemic, more than 5,000 Minnesotans have required hospitalization. 

The Rileys aren't sure where Cooley contracted COVID-19 but think he might have been exposed to the virus when he visited Chicago around Mother's Day. 

"We never took it to be a joke or anything," Dottie said. "I feel like as a family, we was doing the right things. We was always washing our hands and stocked up on big things of ... hand sanitizer."

Still, Cooley got sick, as did a number of the couple's children. The isolation — not being able to visit Cooley in the hospital and not being able to spend time together as a family — was difficult for such a tight-knit family, Dottie said. 

"That was the hardest part — me praying and dealing with my husband on life support. My kids weren't here for moral support," she said. 

Dottie was able to visit Cooley shortly before his July 9 release from the hospital. Prior to that, the family communicated with Cooley by video, even when he couldn't return the communication. 

"We was all kind of scared at first because we had never experienced someone on life support," Dottie said. "We didn't want to see him like that but I was telling the kids, we need to see him like that because we need for him to hear our voices. Maybe that will heal him." 

Dottie said she appreciates the hospital staff who cared for Cooley and helped her family communicate with him. 

"This is a really a hard time for everyone. For them to leave their families and come take care of my family — that's a blessing to me," she said. 

"I always let the nurses at St. Cloud Hospital know that: Thank you for taking care of my husband because I couldn't."

Although Cooley still is unable to help his community in the same way he did before he was sick, he wants to help now by sharing his story. 

"What I want to tell people is to take it seriously," Dottie said. "This COVID ain't no joke. And I know ain't nobody in this state right now want to go through what we went through as a family."

"People got to wear their masks or they stand the chance of not wearing it for good," Cooley added. "That's the bottom line." 

Health

COVID-19

Cooley Riley is one of more than 5,000 Minnesotans to be hospitalized due to COVID-19 but his absence was and continues to be felt by his community. 

After 33 days on life support, St. Cloud man recovering from COVID-19 at home

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