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MILLINOCKET – A Maine native and COVID-19 survivor has donated her antibodies to help others afflicted with the deadly virus.

Millinocket native Sarah Summers got the coronavirus back in March while cutting hair and on Wednesday, donated her plasma to a new clinical trial underway by Trinity Health of New England.

“It’s called convalescent plasma and I’m part of a group of 100 people and it’s a study ’cause we’ve already had COVID,” Summers said Thursday. “They’re going to use it on people who are very, very ill.”

She added, “They’re hoping what they find is that our antibodies will bring these people back from the brink of death.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Trinity Health’s clinical trial earlier this month. They began accepting plasma this week and treated their first patient at Mercy Medical Center in Massachusetts on Wednesday.

Summers, who now lives in Windsor, Connecticut, drove to Rhode Island to donate her plasma.

The trial will test if antibodies from COVID-19 survivors can help patients who are critically ill or on a ventilator.

“They did it for SARS and ebola, and it worked so they’re hoping this is enough similar that it will do it too,” Summers said. “I think it’s a really good thing because I’m not just going to give the convalescents plasma, it’s going to be studied. For me, I feel like this is a neat thing. Like doing extra.”

The FDA also gave Johns Hopkins University and the Mayo Clinic the nod to proceeds with their clinical trials.

The protocols for the Trinity Health trial require survivors to test positive for the virus, be past the 14-day quarantine and then test negative.

Summers said she sought out the clinical trial because she wanted to help.

“People are hooked up to a respirator and they’re dying and all you have to do is go give a bag of fluid,” the Millinocket native said. “I mean it seems kind of silly, doesn’t it, to not do it.”