MY MESSAGE FOR TV KATE
Steve spent 67 days in intensive care – 63 of them hooked up to a ventilator – before having intensive physio to learn how to walk again.
Two-thirds of coronavirus victims placed on ventilators have died.
In March, when Steve was admitted, the average Covid patient spent eight days in hospital. Steve, who teaches swing jive, can remember little about his three-month ordeal.
He said: “The last thing I remember is being taken from the ambulance and down the ramp into hospital.”
Some 43 days after he was first placed on the ventilator and in an induced coma, he opened his eyes.
“The next things I knew four sets of eyes were looking at me and their faces were covered in surgical masks.
“It was scary. I had no idea what was going on. They tried their best to calm me. I tried to talk to them but I couldn’t because I’d had a tracheostomy for a tube down my throat.”
Steve first fell ill on March 15 when 55 Brits had lost their lives to the disease. Since then, more than 42,000 have died. He said: “I didn’t feel right and had a little bit of a cough but it was nothing to write home about.
“By Thursday I felt terrible and my stepdaughter called me.” Steve, from Bromyard, Herefordshire, was taken
SURVIVOR Steve White last night sent a message of hope to Good Morning Britain star Kate Garraway, saying: “Never give up.”
Kate’s husband Derek Draper has been in intensive care since March 30 after getting Covid-19.
Kate, 53, right, has spoken of her worst fear that Derek, 52, to Hereford County Hospital and put on oxygen after stepdaughter Lorna Townsend, 38, called an ambulance.
He said: “I don’t remember this but I must have been coping because I later found text messages on my phone where I’d told family and friends I was may never regain consciousness. Steve said: “If I met Kate I’d tell her that Derek can recover. Never give up. Keep strong.
“Even if there’s a slightest chance, you’ve got to keep fighting for him. They couldn’t believe my recovery but it can
happen. I’m proof.” in hospital. I’m told that within 24 hours I was struggling to breath so badly I was begging to be sedated.
“The nurses told me they’d see me in about five days but it didn’t quite turn out like that.”
Daughter Charlotte Metcalfe, 33, and son Callum White, 29, faced an anxious daily wait for news as they were unable to visit because of the virus.
Callum, an electrician, said: “The nurses were amazing and let us to call twice a day so he could listen to our voices on speaker phone and they would read out emails from friends, but not physically seeing him was terrible.”
On April 18, Charlotte, a trainee nurse, and Callum were called to the hospital after Steve suffered seizures.
Callum said: “The consultant said things didn’t look good and, even if he made it, they didn’t know if he would be able to do anything by himself.
“Every day the chances were getting slimmer and the doctor said Dad had now had just one per cent chance of