Mend after mystery virus
RADIO host Richard Bacon paid tribute to his wife as he prepared to leave hospital today after his virus hell.
The former Blue Peter presenter spent nine days in a coma and came close to death after picking up a mystery lung infection. Devoted wife Rebecca watched as Richard, 42, clung to life in hospital after checking himself in following a flight home from the US. Yesterday he tweeted a picture of them holding hands on his hospital bed and wrote: “Last full day in hospital.
“Every facet of my life would be worse without Rebecca in it. How will I ever thank her?”
He first posted a light-hearted photograph of himself attached to monitors on July 5 – just before doctors placed him in an induced coma.
He wrote at the time: “Thank God I got ill in Britain (actually on the way to Britain, was taken off the plane in a wheelchair).
“F*** all the ideology-driven politicians who’ve messed up America’s healthcare system. Viva the NHS. Happy 70th.”
And only after waking did he find out how close he had come to dying.
He revealed: “It’s an as-yet-unidentified double chest infection. I nearly died.”
Richard said he was rushed to intensive care at midnight “with a massive needle jammed in my chest – a bit like Pulp Fiction. I thought, ‘This is it’.”
Paying tribute to NHS staff at Lewisham Hospital in south London, the broadcaster added: “Low on energy but I love and admire all the team at Lewisham Hospital. Viva the NHS.”