Coronavirus patient who was in a coma for two weeks gets standing ovation from health workers

A mum who beat coronavirus burst into tears as the NHS staff who brought her back from the brink of death gave her a standing ovation.

Medics at Darlington Memorial Hospital in County Durham cheered Sarah Wood, 35, as she was wheeled out of the intensive care unit (ICU) just days after her fiancé was told to prepare for the worst.

She was in a medically-induced coma for almost two weeks and hooked up to a ventilator as nurses and doctors did everything they could to save her life.

As she lay unconscious, staff told her devastated partner Christopher McCurdy, 32, that she was critically ill and she "might not come home from the virus".

Ms Wood, who has a five-year-old daughter, Amber, turned a corner after staff tried a "new technique" - a tracheostomy, where a tube attached to a ventilator was inserted into her windpipe through a hole in her neck - to help her breathe.

The coronavirus survivor has been brought out of the coma and continues to recover in hospital after she was released from ICU, also known as the intensive treatment unit (ITU), on Tuesday.

She told Mirror Online: "I got a standing ovation as I came out. It was very overwhelming and emotional. I cried as they were wheeling me off the ward."

Ms Wood, one of the youngest patients to come out of the ward having beaten Covid-19, and Mr McCurdy have hailed NHS staff for saving her life.

She hasn't seen her fiancé or daughter since she was admitted on March 27. Both had contact with her when she had the virus, but neither has developed symptoms.

Speaking from her hospital bed, Ms Wood said: "I can’t thank the staff in ITU enough. Without them my daughter wouldn’t have a mum, my partner wouldn’t have me.

"I don’t think I would have pulled through it. I certainly wouldn’t have survived on my own.

"They all kept telling me to fight for my daughter and my partner and my family,” she said.