Undertaker recalls 'living nightmare' of being in ICU with coronavirus

Chris Williams, from Burtonwood, has spent almost six months recovering after being struck down by the virus in April.

The 55-year-old, who works at Fisher & Dixon Funeral Directors in St Helens, thought his life was over during a long stint in intensive care at Whiston Hospital, an experience he describes as a “living nightmare.”

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For much of that time, Chris was on a ventilator.

Chris said: “I don’t really remember going into intensive care apart from using the CPAP machine for quite a few days.

“And it was just a case of, ‘we’re left with nothing else we can do for you’, and they just put me on a ventilator. I thought I was dying at that point. I just said to them, kill me now.

“I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t put a spoon full of food in my mouth without choking or coughing because I couldn’t breathe.

“It was awful.”

Chris sustained a number of injuries while in ICU, including a torn trachea, a blood clot in his finger and nerve damage on his side.

He also had issues with his kidneys and heart.

Thanks to the tireless work of the hospital staff, and perhaps a helping of good fortune, Chris pulled through and was moved back to the ward.

Chris was moved back to the ward after his stint in intensive care at Whiston Hospital

Chris was admitted home in early June, where he returned to his wife to continue to recovery.

Since returning home, Chris has been doing yoga every day to help his breathing and he believes this has contributed to his recovery.

Almost six months on and he has returned to his job, initially for three days a week. He is now due to return full time next week.

Chris said he does feel weaker than he was, but does not appear to have any serious longer-term issues like some people have reported.

And while he is ready to get back to work, the father-of-two admitted that he is scared of being struck down by the virus again, given the uncertainty around whether people can catch it more than once.

“It is a living nightmare being trapped in your own thoughts and your own mind and the fact you can’t move unless somebody moves you,” Chris said.

“You can’t even get the phlegm out of our throat without somebody hoovering it out the back of your throat because the stuff that comes out of you, you can’t get it out your mouth.

“You can’t spit it out, you’re trying to pull it out with your fingers. It’s thick, it’s gloopy. It’s pneumonia, it just blocks everything in your lungs and the only way to shift it is to keep forcing air in to push it and hoover the goo out that’s coming up.

“It’s a vile, vile thing. It’s like jellyfish coming out of your mouth. It’s awful.”

Despite his fears, Chris is ready to do his part on the frontline, and is now bracing himself for an influx of deaths caused by a second wave.

Admissions at Whiston Hospital have been rising for several weeks amid surging infection rates across the region.

St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has also recorded 14 coronavirus-related deaths in the past fortnight.

Whiston Hospital has seen a rise in coronavirus-related admissions and deaths in recent weeks

With the dreaded second wave now here, Chris just hopes the public play their part to help protect the most vulnerable people in our communities.

He said: “You speak to other undertakers and the mortuary at the hospital and when you go into the care homes and just generally in the funeral industry, they seem to be getting ready for it all coming back again, unfortunately.

“And the worst part was going out to old folks’ homes to bring deceased in. These people had died on their own because their families couldn’t go see them because of it.

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“And that’s what people need to consider, that their relatives are dying on their own. With nobody with them.

"If I’d have died, I’d have been on my own, and they need to think about that.

“They can get as hysterical and shouty and angry as they want but they’re not going to be allowed to go in for fear of spreading it through the care homes or through the hospital ward.

“They can’t do it.”