By model who nearly died from Covid EXCLUSIVE
A FORMER page 3 girl who backed the anti-vax movement has told how she almost died after catching Covid.
Holly Mcguire, 43, was put into an induced coma and given just a 15% chance of survival after contracting the virus.
She needed a tube inserted into her windpipe to help her breath and spent six weeks in hospital fighting for her life.
Now she is urging everyone of all ages to get the jab, saying: “It could save your life. Never take life for granted. This can happen to anyone – including you.
“I was an anti-vaxxer, I was unvaccinated. Now I can honestly tell people Covid is real.
“Please, everyone, ignore the nonsense some people are spouting, get the jab.
“Luckily for me I have lived to tell my story. But I nearly died twice.
“My husband Steve was told to prepare for the worst. He phoned my mum in tears saying it didn’t look like I would make it.”
Holly, who appeared in the TV series Footballers Wives in 2006, said she battled double pneumonia and her lung collapsed while she was in hospital.
Dreadful
She spent two weeks in a coma, missing her daughter Madison’s seventh birthday, and due to breathing difficulties caused by the coronavirus she also had a tracheotomy.
Holly, from Grays, Essex, but now living in Marbella, Spain, said: “I have a healthy diet, don’t party, hardly drink and don’t smoke. I thought, ‘This disease won’t affect me’.
“A lot of my friends were anti-vaxxers, campaigning against the jab, and
I was listening to them, too.
“People were saying we won’t know for years if the jab is reliable and seeing news reports from back home I didn’t feel reassured by the
UK Government.
“I thought there were so many reasons not to have it.
“I now regret that so much. I made so many excuses not to have it, but when I caught Covid it was dreadful, it hit me like a truck. Just get vaccinated as soon as possible.”
Holly tested positive for Covid on July 10 and spent 10 days isolating at home.
But she started having breathing difficulties and was admitted to intensive care in a Spanish hospital. She developed pneumonia in both lungs.
Doctors struggled to bring her out of the coma fearing she could lose her life.
When Holly did wake up she had lost two and a half stone and was struggling to use her
legs, needing intense physio to help her walk again.
She said: “I was in hospital for six weeks in total and I am so grateful to still be here.
“I’ve felt shattered ever since. Last weekend was the first time I’ve been out with my family.
“I was an anti-vaxxer but now I know I was wrong. I never thought I’d get Covid, but it can hit anyone.”