Viva the NHS, says Richard Bacon after coma scare

Richard Bacon has emerged from a medically induced coma and praised the NHS for saving his life.

The BBC presenter fell ill on a flight from the US 10 days ago and attended a hospital in south London, where his condition deteriorated. Yesterday he returned to social media, writing: “This is how good Lewisham Hospital is.

“I walked in off the street simply complaining of being short of breath.

“[Within] 90 minutes they had placed me into a life-saving six-day coma.”

He joked: “I am alive. Or in Lewisham. Or somewhere between the two.”

He added: “It’s an [as] yet unidentified double chest infection. I nearly died. At one point, as I was run down a hallway to ICU at midnight, with a massive needle jammed in my chest (bit like Pulp Fiction), I thought, ‘this is it.’”

Bacon, 42, who is married with two children, recalled his thoughts: “How is this going to affect my kids’ lives? Who’s going to sit my poor dad down and say, ‘I’m sorry, we did everything we could.’ But then I didn’t die. “Viva the NHS.”

He is reportedly moving back to Britain from the US to be closer to his family.