'I thought I was going to die': Taxi driver's thanks to Blackpool Victoria Hospital staff after coronavirus recoveryhttps://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/heal ... ry-2538037
Stephen Betteridge-Rowland, 45, who caught the disease after a passenger coughed in his taxi, said at one point on the ward he feared he was going to die. Praising the medics who helped him get home in time for his son's birthday, dad-of-four Stephen, from South Shore, said he had been shocked when a man in the next bed to him died from the virus.
Stephen became breathless two weeks ago, shortly after getting home from work. He rang his doctors and then the NHS 111 helpline, where a medic told him he needed hospital treatment. After arriving at the Vic in an ambulance, Stephen said he was sent home – but returned the next day after his condition worsened.
He tested positive for the coronavirus two days later – and began to struggle with sickness and diarrhoea, as well as a fever.
He also lost his sense of taste, he said. “I just thought I was going to die,” he said. “I thought I was going to croak. My wife couldn’t see me – you are just on your own.” Stephen was able to video call his wife, Kerry, 40, and children – Nathan, 14, Declan, 12, and twins Logan and Kieran, both four – as he was being treated.
He said: “They put me on antibiotics. I did not have pneumonia but they wanted to stop that happening,” a decision which Stephen said may have saved his life. “I was very lucky they did not move me to intensive care. They were on about moving me there one night because I was so weak.
“The care at the hospital was absolutely fantastic. The staff working on wards two and eight were brilliant and I’m so grateful to them. “It was a really scary time and so hard not being able to see my family too.”
And during his stay in hospital, he was on a ward in the next bed from a man, who was “sat up in his chair in the day time”, before he was placed on a nebuliser – a medical device which helps patients breathe. “I looked over and he was pale,” Stephen said, with medics in protective gear rushing in to try and save his life. “He died, unfortunately.”
Stephen is now recovering at his home in Belvere Avenue, just off St Annes Road, but still feels weak. His wife and children have so far shown no symptoms, he said, with the youngsters all suffering from asthma, which puts them at greater risk of falling seriously ill from Covid-19.
And he urged people to adhere to the Government’s strict lockdown rules, which look set to be extended for another three weeks on Thursday. He also urged the Government to ramp up testing for the virus so people can get back to work, adding: “I’m not going back out there for a while.”
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