Don’t put me to sleep... I won’t wake up
Dad’s final words to fiancee
A FATHER died after testing positive for coronavirus and pleading with his fiancee not to be put into an induced coma.
Terrified he would not come round, Leon Boase’s last words to Nichola Jennison were: ‘Don’t put me to sleep, I won’t wake up.’
The couple had both caught Covid-19 in early November and had been self-isolating.
At first, Mr Boase, 40, showed no symptoms but then went to hospital suffering excruciating stomach pains on November 12.
Within 24 hours, he was on a ventilator and spent the next four weeks in intensive care.
In that time, the forklift driver was diagnosed with pneumonia twice and his kidneys also began to fail.
Doctors gave him just 1 per cent chance of surviving, saying he needed a lung transplant but this was not possible at the time.
Mr Boase, of Ormesby, Middlesbrough, died on December 13 after a final talk with his fiancee on FaceTime after a nurse called her. Miss Jennison, 3 , said: ‘His last words to me were: “Don’t put me to sleep, I won’t wake up.”
‘I’ll never forget that. It was so heartbreaking but I told him to stop being silly and that he would be home soon.
‘I just can’t get my head around what happened. He never smoked, he didn’t drink, he didn’t go out, he was always so cautious but now he’s gone.’
The couple have a son Leo, eight, plus Miss Jennison’s son Leighton, 16, from a previous relationship.
She described Mr Boase, whose funeral was last Tuesday, as a ‘quiet, private and a doting family man’ who was ‘the best dad and partner in the world’.
They had been together for nine years but had previously gone out with each other at school. ‘We went our separate ways but found each other again,’ said Miss Jennison. ‘He was my first and last love.’
‘I’ll never forget that, it was so heartbreaking’