Mum home after days on life support

Nicoleta put in a coma to beat Covid

A MUM who caught Covid while pregnant is finally home with her daughter after a year in hospital which included 299 days on life support.

Nicoleta Tuna, 30, contracted the virus in October 2021 and was placed in an induced coma after Thea was delivered by C-section.

In November Nicoleta was transferred to Royal Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, for advanced care. She was woken up in February 2022, when Thea was nearly four months old.

Nicoleta spent 299 days on an ECMO life support machine while in Papworth which pumped oxygen into her blood, allowing her lungs to rest.

It was a record stay at the hospital.

When Thea was six months, she held her for the first time. She was finally discharged on Thursday, clapped from the ward by NHS staff. There to greet her were her husband Mike, her six-year-old son Eduard and Thea.

Nicoleta, from Colchester, Essex, said: “I can now spend the rest of my life with [my children] and my husband thanks to all the people at Royal

Papworth. While I was in critical care, the staff wrote well wishes in a notebook which I will treasure forever.”

She added: “They threw a [first birthday] party for Thea, just amazing. They’re now my second family.”

The Romanian mum even learnt to speak English helped by ward staff. Unvaccinated, she got Covid at 36 weeks pregnant. Nicoleta said: “After the C-section I remember nothing. I woke and was being nursed by a Romanian healthcare worker. I asked ‘what day is it’. She said ‘22 February, 2022’. “I couldn’t believe it.” martin.bagot@ mirror.co.uk @Martinbagot

ON THE MEND Mum with her physios