Clock said 4am and I celebrated as if we’d scored ...I was still alive
SHREWSBURY BOSS STEVE COTTERILL ON HIS TERRIFYING COVID ORDEAL
STEVE Cotterill’s voice breaks as he relives the terrifying Covid ordeal that took him to the brink of death. ‘One night I was petrified of going to sleep because I feared I would never wake up,’ recalled Cotterill.
When he did open his eyes early one morning, Cotterill realised he had survived a terrifying brush with mortality — and that the worst days were behind him.
The Shrewsbury manager, who turned 57 last month, counts himself ‘incredibly lucky to have lived to tell the tale’ after almost succumbing to coronavirus while in intensive care at Bristol Royal Infirmary.
‘I’ve generally got a positive mentality but there was one night when I must admit fearing the worst,’ Cotterill told Sportsmail.
‘I was lying on my bed frightened about going to sleep because I honestly doubted if I’d wake up in the morning.
‘I was drained but too scared to close my eyes. I was clinging on and it was frightening but I thought, “I’m not ready to leave my family yet”.’
Sleep came and what followed was ‘a mixture of relief and exhilaration’ as he came through what he describes as ‘literally my darkest hour’.
‘I remember waking up and looking at the clock which said 10 past four,’ said Cotterill. ‘I slapped my hands together, as if we’d just scored. I spoke to myself, “What was all the fuss about? That’s the end of that drama”.’
He is still at a loss to explain why Covid pushed him to the brink after he tested positive on new Year’s day.
‘Things went downhill after I joined in a training session, which was probably unwise,’ said Cotterill. ‘I felt really fatigued that evening and woke up in the middle of night with my bed sheets soaking wet. I saw the physio the next morning and a Covid test came back positive.
‘I isolated in a Shrewsbury hotel for 10 days but became really poorly. I hardly drank or ate. I lost a stone and a half in weight.’
One of 17 people in the Shrewsbury camp to be hit in that outbreak, he returned to the family home in Bristol. He was ‘effectively force-fed’ before ‘my coughing was so bad I thought I’d pass out’.
He turned to former Bristol City club doctor Jonathan Williams for advice. ‘I was finding it harder and harder to breathe and thought, “My god, I’m in really big trouble here”,’ said Cotterill.
‘When I described my symptoms to the doc, he was decisive: “We need to get you in an ambulance” and that was when it hit home.’
With the hospital full, he was stuck in a holding bay for nearly 14 hours, hooked up to oxygen amid a flurry of activity from doctors and nurses ‘battling to save lungs under attack’.
And so began a journey that as well as Covid-19, included suffering a punctured lung, emphysema and then Covid-pneumonia.
Football proved vital to maintaining his sanity while he was afraid and alone in hospital.
‘I’d have a laugh with the doctors, joking that I felt like a team fighting to get out of the relegation zone,’ he said.
‘But on a serious note, work gave me a positive focus. I kept in touch with aaron Wilbraham, my assistant, who bore the brunt, waking up to loads of notes.’
To regain fitness, he turned his room into a mini-gym. Eventually allowed to return home, he was ‘the happiest guy on the planet’.
‘My family were all scared witless,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see any of my loved ones face-to-face after I went through the hospital doors because of the tight restrictions.’
He was back home for 11 days before being re-admitted on March 1 as his breathing problems returned.
HE had developed Covid-19 pneumonia but his treatment regime was tweaked and he was discharged and returned to work before the end of last season. Then he focused on making sure he was back in his office for the start of the new season.
Now able to reflect on a harrowing journey that saw him away from the club for 69 days, he says he will be ‘eternally grateful’ for Shrewsbury’s support and is determined to pay back chairman Roland Wycherley.
‘I don’t think I’ll be back to full health this year,’ he said. ‘It’s been very humbling and I’ll remain forever in debt to the doctors and nurses who guided me back to health. They’re genuine heroes.
‘I got 2,000 text messages from people wishing me well. It took a while to go through them but when I did I burst into tears.’