Kathy Wootton, 56, spent a month on a ventilator, was placed in a medically induced coma and came close to dying twice.
Cape Town – Kathy Wootton, like many Covid-19 survivors, finds it difficult to fully describe what she went through.
The 56-year-old Wootton, from Kenilworth, admitted in a Facebook post that it is ’’too surreal to talk about but this I have to share (video). It’s me (on the gurney) leaving Kingsbury after a record breaking 65 days in ICU. I will never forget this’’.
All the hospital staff at the Life Kingsbury had come out to give her an memorable send-off, applauding her as she was wheeled out of the hospital, with Wootton enthusiastically acknowledging their sentiments.
Goodthingsguy.com reported that she spoke highly of every single healthcare worker she engaged with at the Life Kingsbury Hospital in Claremont, who work tirelessly to make sure they save as many lives as possible. After 65 days in ICU, Wootton can speak with authority.
She told Netwerk24 she doesn’t remember too much about her time in hospital, having to rely a lot on what healthcare workers told her after being admitted on December 16 last year. A lot of information was also withheld from her to prevent her stress levels from spiking.
Wootton spent a month on a ventilator, was placed in a medically induced coma and came close to dying twice.
“It’s not nice to lie or work in a Covid-19 unit. You literally have people dying around you, but you have to keep fighting and keep on doing your job as a healthcare worker.’’
She said she will never forget the send-off she received, saying it was ’’overwhelming, euphoric and unbelievable’’, something she will never forget.
Now recuperating at a rehabilitation centre, Wootton said: ’’To get such an ovation after such a terrible battle with an awful sickness gave me renewed strength.’’
Wootton’s sister, Helen Moffett, wrote on the Daily Maverick: ’’To me, it’s the most beautiful and moving clip I’ll ever see — I weep every time I watch it — but then I’m a little biased.
’’What is especially moving is not just the sight of my sister waving from her gurney, alive, on her way to step-down care and the rest of her life: it’s the palpable joy of the staff giving her a rousing send-off. It’s their cheers and celebrations that have gripped viewers, that have had hundreds of strangers describing how tears rolled down their cheeks as they watched…
‘’The ambulance paramedic pushing the gurney told her that in her career, she’d never seen a send-off like it…
’’Christine Malan, manager of Life Kingsbury, who was consistently kind during the worst weeks of our lives, even though she was running a hospital in the throes of the second wave, wrote to say what a lift my sister’s recovery had given her staff at a time when morale sorely needed boosting, how genuinely overjoyed they were by her recovery.’’
IOL
