Coronavirus: First Gwent ITU patient 'back from brink of death'

A coronavirus patient has said he was "brought back from the brink of death" after eight weeks in hospital.

Scott Howell, 48, from Wyllie, near Blackwood, was the first Covid-19 patient in the Royal Gwent Hospital's intensive care unit in March.

Scott, who has diabetes and asthma, was put into an induced coma for more than two weeks during which his heart stopped - twice.

"They [NHS staff] are fantastic people, I'll remember them forever," he said.

Scott, a civil servant in Newport, initially became ill with pneumonia in early March, however things took a drastic turn for the worse after it spread to both lungs.

During his time in intensive care, he was twice resuscitated by hospital staff.

His only memories are vivid dreams of being chased and captured, and it was only when he later read the his medical notes that he realised just how close he came to dying.

"They said 'you've been as ill as anybody can get with this virus', and that it was touch and go," he recalled.

"No-one said anything, but I was reading the nurses' notes, when they put the tracheotomy in, it said 'your heart stopped and we performed CPR because your oxygen levels just dropped out'.

"I thought, 'Oh my goodness, I could have died.'

"It's wonderful and lucky that I've come out of it. It makes you readjust and reassess life. So it didn't just save my life, it's changed my life because the little things just don't matter anymore.

"You just want to be with your family and in the fresh air. I could go and live in a tent, because I just reassessed that nothing matters apart from your health and your family."

While Scott was fighting for his life, his wife Helen was at home looking after their children.

Not allowed to visit, she would talk to him via their mobile phones - in the hope he was listening - and played their wedding songs down the line.

"The nurses said I could ring Scott's phone while he was in the coma and he may be able to hear me," she said.

"It's just been the worst time ever, worrying that the hospital were going to ring with bad news. Every day you've just got to get on with it."

A video of Scott being clapped by NHS staff as he left hospital on Thursday has been watched more than 235,000 times on social media.

"I couldn't believe it, I should have been clapping them. They were doing all the hard work to save my life," he said.

"They brought me back from the brink of death. They are wonderful, fantastic people and I'll remember them forever.

"I told them, 'I won't be clapping you on Thursday, I'll clap you every day of my life because I've got my life back, thanks to you."